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GEMS 



IRISH ELOQUENCE 



WIT AND ANECDOTE. 



GEMS 



IRISH ELOQUENCE, 



WIT AND ANECDOTE. 



By JAMES HOBAN, 



OF THE WASHINGTON BAR. 




BALTIMORE: 

JOHN MURPHY, PRINTER AND PUBLISHER, 146 >URKET STREET. 

eUSHING & BROTHER, Ne. 206 MARKET STREET; JOHN GUSHING & CO^ No. 6 NORTH 
HOWARD STREET. 

PHILADELPHIA:-JAMES KAY, Jr & BRO., No. 122 CHESTNUT STREET. 

HTTSBURG:-C H. KAY & CO. 

MDCCCXLI. 



fWf 



ri 



rp -> ---".3 



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Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and 
forty-one, by John Mcrph?-, in the Clerk's Office, of the District Court of 
Maryland. 



17^ 



PREFACE. 



The character of the Irish people, to an 
observing mind, presents peculiar ingredients 
of interest. That character has imprinted 
itself upon the destiny, and history, of many 
of the modern nations. Congeniality of dis- 
position and feeling, and that which the Dec- 
laration of Independence calls "an inalienable 
right," the search after happiness, have made 
our shores the recipient of a large proportion 
of the over abundant population of Erin. 

Her history — alternating from splendor and 
triumph to discomfiture and squalid misery, 
from the changing and improving present, to 
undoubted antiquity and the poetic past, — 
is well calculated to arrest and to rivet the 
attention. 



via PREFACE. 

Who does not delight to recur to the period 
when the keel of the daring Phsenician first 
grated on her sands, or to wander in imagina- 
tion by the towers and the trophies of their 
worship, to contemplate the manners and the 
language of a people, presenting in these par- 
ticulars so little affinity with the races and 
the nations by which they are surrounded? 

We read in the spirit of the history of 
heroic ages, of the splendor of her halls, the 
hospitality of her princes, the poetry of her 
bards, whilst from her ancient harp a flood 
of melody is poured upon our listening ears. 

When other nations w^ere swept by the 
tide of war, when discord and darkness like 
thickening clouds settled upon them, she was 
blessed with peace, prosperity and light! From 
her secluded seats, of learning and of grace, 
she sent her heralds and her ministers abroad 
to illuminate the world. Cruel reverses indeed, 



PREFACE. IX 



and protracted periods of disaster, it has been 
her fate to endure, but again in our latter day 
she has emerged, in some degree, from the 
abasement to which a cowardly tyranny had 
consigned her, and by the union and energy of 
her sons aspires with a boldness, promising 
success, to the dignity of her ancient national 
independence. 

It is proposed in the ensuing pages to pre- 
sent, from example, history, and fact, a pic- 
ture of the peculiar qualities of Irishmen, 
their bravery, eloquence and wit. 

My object has been as far as possible, in 
the examples which I have cited, to develope 
not only the virtues of Irishmen, but so to 
have selected the different narratives that 
they might revive recollections, and retrace 
the course of recent history, familiar to the 
bosoms and the memories of many whose 
eyes may rest upon these pages. 



PREFACE. 



Another favorite object has been^ to present 
in a condensed shape, the style and the ex- 
cerpted brilliancies from the productions of 
the more prominent of the Irish orators, par- 
ticularly from those who have made their 
home the scene of their exertions, and whose 
efforts combine the mingled attractions of 
genius and of history. 

It has been well remarked, that although 
the school of Irish eloquence is plainly dif- 
ferent from every other, that each mas- 
ter in that school is just as clearly distin- 
guishable from the rest. Each indeed is 
captivating, each peculiar in his manner of 
captivation; brilliant and beautiful, full of 
energy and pathos, yet do they vary as widely 
as the blushing rose, from the gaudy tulip, or 
as both from the snowy magnolia, whose 
budding, scents the universal air with pro- 
fusion of fragrance. 



PREFACE. XI 

Grattan, whose noble efforts are so insepa- 
rably intertwined with the advancement of 
his country, whose voice sounding above the 
grave of Irish independence, by its trumpet 
peal recalled it to a temporary resurrection, 
was himself no copyist, nor was he copied by 
thosetwho succeeded him. He is bold, ener- 
getic, rapid, concise, clear — a limpid stream 
within the narrowest bounds, hurrying on its 
course, whilst his magnificent and seemingly 
unstudied metaphors are like the uncultur- 
ed oaks, which on a river's bank lift up their 
leafy heads, or stretch abroad their widening 
boughs. He is chaste, terse, logical and se- 
vere. The style of his great rival, Mr. Flood, 
was still less adorned. He is distinguished 
for lucidness of argument, for logic, searching 
and convincing. Their mutual altercations, 
especially upon the matter of simple repeal, 
are highly interesting, as attesting their pow- 



Xll . PREFACE. 

ers of aggression and defence, their command 
of satire, point and invective. 

Far different from these do v^e find the dis- 
tinguished advocate, Mr. Curran, a star of the 
first magnitude in the heavens of genuine 
eloquence! His was the fire of Demosthenes, 
the majesty of Chatham, the purity of Cicero. 
This may seem unqualified eulogium — but be- 
fore such language is condemned, let the critic 
peruse the speech in the case of Massy vs, 
Headfort, the allusion, in the defence of Ham- 
ilton Rowan, to universal emancipation, the 
description of the informer O'Brian. Lord 
Byron observed of Mr. Curran, that he had 
spoken more poetry than any man had ever 
written; when we reflect on the circumstances 
under which his speeches were delivered, that 
those gorgeous passages which now command 
the admiration of the world, were poured forth 
with the rapidity of improvisation, we are 



PREFACE. XIU 

compelled to admit that he was certainly one 
of the most extraordinary, and most highly 
gifted of the children of genius. The cata- 
ract which falls in thunder, dashing up its 
spray in myriad glittering gems, might image 
his deep intensity of passion— his unequalled 
brilliancy and splendor of expression. 

From Phillips, Plunket, Burke, Burro wes, 
and others, rich specimens of reasoning and 
declamation are collected. The space allow- 
ed to remarks of a prefatory character, pre- 
vents further extension upon this point. 

A considerable portion of this work is de- 
voted to incidents and matters, deserving of 
reminiscence, in the history of Ireland, and of 
her men of eminence. Many details are also 
here collected, which are thought worthy of 
preservation, in exemplification of the virtue 
and genius of her humble and unaspiring sons. 

It may be proper to state, in order to pre- 
2 



XIV PREFACE. 

vent misapprehension, that but little annbition 
of authorship is indulged by the compiler. I 
have draw^n liberally from every source within 
my reach, in the attainment of my purpose. 
When I had advanced somewhat in the con- 
summation of my design, I discovered that a 
work, in some respects similar, had been pre- 
sented to the English public by Mr. Phillips. 
Had I known this sooner it would have 
saved me much manuscript labor. To several 
works and authors I am peculiarly indebted, 
and amongst the latter to the writer of the life of 
Mr. Curran, one of his sons who, in doing justice 
to the memory of his father, has produced one 
of the most interesting and brilliant specimens 
of biography belonging to our language. The 
reader will also perceive the liberality with 
which I have appropriated the labors of Tone, 
Sampson and Moore. My great object has 
been to present Irish character through the 



PREFACE. XV 

medium of its fruits, as exhibited in literature 
and in facts. My purpose has been to gather 
the disjointed elements, which united, consti- 
tute a pyramid more enduring and more glo- 
rious than the lofty memorials of the deserts 
of the east — to gather into a wreath scattered 
flowers of wit, eloquence, bravery, and truth, 
and, with a hand however unworthy, to bind 
them in their beauty around the ancient brow 

of Erin. 

JAMES HOBAN. 

Washington, jipril 20, 1841. 



CONTENTS. 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOQUENCE. 

PAGE. 

EMMET'S, ROBERT— Speech, delivered at the Session- 
house, Dublin, before Lord Norbury 25 

JUSTICE, BRITISH— from Sheridan's Speech, impeaching 
Warren Hastings 35 

STATE NECESSITY, by Mr. Sheridan 38 

FILIAL AFFECTION, by Mr. Sheridan, from same speech. . 46 

PERORATION OF SHERIDAN, on the impeachment of 
Wcirren Hastings * 49 

MASSY, Rev. CHARLES— Mr. Curran's speech in his behalf 
against the Marquis of Headford, at i-nms Assizes, County 
Clare, on the 27th July, 1804. 52 

CLARE, LORD — The attack directed against him on the 
bench, by Mr. Curran, on Alderman Howison's election as 
Lord Mayor of Dublin. . . . * 74 

FITZGIBBON, ATTORNEY GENERAL— Mr. Curran's re- 
ply to him, in answer to much personality, from the speech on 
Attachments, in the Irish Parliament, February 24, 1785 75 

GRATTAN — Mr. Curran's opinion of him, from the speech on 

Commercial Intercourse, August 15, 1785 77 

2* 



XVIII CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

PENSION LIST, THE— By Mr. Curran 77 

THE VOLUNTEERS OF IRELAND— from Mr. Curran's 

speech in defence of Alexander Hamilton Rowan 80 

UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION, by Mr. Curran 80 

SCOTLAND'S GENIUS— from the defence of A. H. Rowan, 

by Mr. Curran 81 

CONCLUSION of the speech in defence of A. H. Rowan 82 

0*BRIEN — from the speech of Mr. Curran, in defence of Pat- 
rick Finnerty 84 

O'BRIEN— from the same 86 

FINNERTY, PATRICK— Conclusion of Mr. Curran's speech 

in defence of same 86 

INFORMERS, CHARACTER OF— from the speech of Mr. 

Curran in defence of Mr. Peter Finnerty, December 22, 1797 87 
FITZGERALD, LORD EDWARD— from Mr. Curran's speech 
before the House of Commons, against his attainder and in 

favor of Lady Pamela Fitzgerald and her infant children 90 

SIRR, HEVEY vs. — from Mr. Curran's speech on this case. . . 91 
BIGOTRY, RELIGIOUS— from the defence of Evan Kirwan, 

by Mr. Curran 93 

AVONMORE, LORD— Character of, from the speech of Mr. 

Curran, in the cause of the King against Mr. Justice Johnson 94 
WASHINGTON, Character of— speech of Mr. Phillips, at a 
dinner given on Dinas Island, in the Lake of Killarney, on 
Mr. Phillips' health being given, together with that of Mr. 

Payne, a young American 96 

CURRAN, Character of— from Mr. Phillips' speech at Sligo ... 102 



CONTENTS. XIX 

PAGE 

CHRISTIAN RELIGION— from Mr. Phillips' speech at Cork 103 

BIGOTRY— from the speech of Mr. Phillips at Dublin 104 

LIBERTY OF THE PRESS— from the speech of Mr. Phillips 

in the case of O'Mullen against McKorkill 105 

SEDUCTION— from the speech of Mr. Phillips, in the case of 

Browne against Blake 106 

IRISH VIRTUE— from the speech of Mr. Phillips, in the case 

of Browne against Blake 109 

THE BIBLE— from the speech of Mr. Phillips at London. ... 109 

MR. GRATTAN— on the declaration of rights, April 16, 1782. Ill 
MR. GRATTAN — from his speech accompanying his motion 

for the Declaration of Irish Rights, April 19, 1780. 121 

TYRANNY — ^by Mr. Grattan, from same speech 123 

AMBITION— by Mr. Grattan, from same , , , 123 

PERPETUAL MUTINY BILL— from the speech of Mr. 

Grattan, November 13, 1781 124 

MR. FLOOD'S SPEECH on Simple Repeal 124 

GRATTAN— his celebrated attack upon Mr. Flood 141 

FLOOD — his reply to Mr. Grattan's answer to his speech, 28th 

October, 1783 151 

THE APOSTLES— from Mr. Grattan's speech on Tithes, Feb. 

14, 1788 168 

SALE OF PEERAGES, and purchases of seats in Parliament, 

February 20, 1790 171 

CATHOLIC PETITION— February 20, 1792. 172 

FOX'S CHARACTER, by Mr. Grattan— speech May 3, 1797 173 

CHARLEMONT, LORD— by Mr, Grattan, January 19, 1792 174 



XX CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

CORRY— Grattan's reply to him, February 14, 1800 175 

PARLIAMENT, IRISH— by Mr. Grattan 180 

UNION WITH ENGLAND— Mr. Plunket's speech 181 

UNION WITH ENGLAND— the men and means by which it 

was perpetrated — Plunket 184 

PITT AND CASTLEREAGH— Plunket 187 

BURRO WES' SPEECH, on the trial of Robinson for Bigamy. 188 

GRATTAN, Character of— by Burrowes 203 

CASTLEREAGH, Conduct of, in forwarding the Union— Bur- 
rowes 205 

CODE, PENAL, in Ireland— by Mr. Burrowes 207 

UNION — injustice of the measure — Mr. Bushe 208 

BUSHE'S REPLY to the charge of Jacobinism, from Mr. 

Plunket 210 



CONTENTS. 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 



PAGE. 

CURRAN AND CLARE 212 

CURRAN AND MACKLIN 213 

CURRAN'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE 216 

CURRAN AND CLARE 217 

CURRAN AND ROBINSON 218 

CURKAN'S EARLY EFFORTS 220 

CURRAN'S FIRST ATTEMPT AT ORATORY. 221 

CURRAN'S BON MOTS and WITTICISMS 226 

CURRAN AND SHERIDAN— comparison of their wit, by H. 

Tooke 229 

CURRAN'S COLLOQUIAL POWERS, by Madame de Stael 229 

CURRAN— his last days and death 230 

FITZGERALD, EDWARD— incident in his life 231 

FITZGERALD— his first interview with his wife 232 

FITZGERALD— his personal courage 233 

FITZGERALD- by Moore 235 

FITZGERALD, and his boot-black 236 

FITZGERALD'S ARREST 237 

FITZGERALD — opinions of eminent men concerning him 241 

FITZGERALD— by Emmet, Parnell, Beresford 242 



XXII CONTEXTS. 

PAGE. 

FITZGERALD— by Dr. McNeven 243 

FITZGERALD— by Musgrave, Toler, Curran 244 

FITZGERALD— by Sampson, Cobbett 245 

SHERIDAN— his School for Scandal 246 

SHERIDAN— his first speech in Parliament 247 

SHERIDAN AND PAYMASTER RIGBY 248 

SHERIDAN'S SPEECH, upon the charges relating to the 
Begum Princes of Oude — opinion thereon of Burke, Fox, 

Pitt,Dolbyn, Logan, Gibbons *. 249 to 252 

SHERIDAN AND RICHARDSON 252 

SHERIDAN— Lord Byron's opinion of him 253 

SHERIDAN— his distresses 254 

SHERIDAN— his last days 255 

SHERIDAN AND DUNDAS 257 

SHERIDAN— his character 257 

TONE, THEOBALD WOLFE— his first interview witJb Hoche 258 

TONE — his Life, from the pen of Sampson. 263 

TONE AND MUNROE 267 

TONE— Gloomy Catalogue 268 

TONE— his Death, written by his son 269 

TONE, MATILDA— honors paid her in America 277 to 280 

TONE FAMILY— their fate 281 

SAMPSON AND LORD MOIRA 282 

REBEL LEADERS of 1798— specimen of their conduct 283 

BYRNE, WILLIAM— Testimonial in his favor, by Sampson. . 284 

EMMET, ROBERT— incidents concerning 286 to 296 

JACKSON, REV. WILLIAM— his Life and Death 297 



CONTENTS. XXIII 

PA.OK, 

JACKSON, REV. WILLIAM— incident during his imprison- 
ment 303 

SHE ARES, HENRY and JOHN—their conviction, &c 305 

ORR, WILLIAM— his dying declaration 310 

ORR, WILLIAM— his trial and execution. 312 

REYNOLDS, the informer — narrow escape of. 314 

COCKAYNE, the informer 316 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOCIUENCE, &c. 



PATRIOTIC SPEECH OF MR. EMMET, 

AS DELIVERED AT THE SESSION HOUSE, DUBLIN, BEFORE LORD 
NORBURY. 



My Lords: 

What have I to say why sentence of death 
should not be pronounced on me, according to law? I 
have nothing to say, that can alter your predetermina- 
tion, nor that it will become me to say with any view 
to the mitigation of that sentence which you are here 
to pronounce, and I must abide by it. But I have 
that to say, which interests me more than life, and 
which you have labored, (as was necessarily your 
office in the present circumstances of this oppressed 
country,) to destroy. I have much to say why my 
reputation should be rescued from the load of false 
accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon 
it. I do not imagine that, seated where you are, your 
minds can be so free from impurity, as to receive the 
least impression from what I am going to utter — I have 
no hopes that I can anchor my character in the breast 
of a court jconstituted and trammelled as this is— I 
only wish, and it is the utmost I expect, that your lord- 
ships may suffer it to float down your memories un- 
tainted by the foul breath of prejudice, until it finds 
3 



26 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

some more hospitable harbor to shelter it from the 
storm by which it is at present buffeted. Were I only 
to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by your 
tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that 
awaits me without a murmur: but the sentence of the 
law which delivers my body to the executioner, will, 
through the ministry of that law, labor in its own vin- 
dication, to consign my character to obloquy — for 
there must be guilt somewhere: whether in the sen- 
tence of the court or in the catastrophe, posterity 
must determine. A man in my situation, my lords, 
has not only to encounter the difficulties of fortune, and 
the force of power over minds which it has corrupted 
or subjugated, but the difficulties of established preju- 
dice: — the man dies, but his memory lives: that mine 
may not perish, that it may live in the respect of my 
countrymen, I seize upon this opportunity to vindicate 
myself from some of the charges alleged against me. 
When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly 
port; when my shade shall have joined the bands of 
those martyred heroes who have shed their blood on 
the scaffold and in the field, in defence of their country 
and of virtue, this is my hope; I wish that my memory 
and name may animate those who survive me, while I 
look down with complacency on the destruction of 
that perfidious government, which upholds its domina- 
tion by blasphemy of the Most High — which displays 
its power over man as over the beasts of the forest — 
which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand 
in the name of God against the throat of his fellow 
who believes or doubts a little more or a little less 
than the government standard — a government which is 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 27 

steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans and 
the tears of the widows which it has made. 

[flere lord JVorbury interrupted Mr. Emmet^ sayings 
that the mean and wicked enthusiasts who felt as he did^ 
were not equal to the accomplishment of their wild de- 
ngns.^ 

1 appeal to the immaculate God — I swear by the 

throne of Heaven, before which I must shortly ap- 
pear — by the blood of the murdered patriots who have 
gone before me — that my conduct has been through 
all this peril and all my purposes, governed only by 
the convictions which I have uttered, and by no other 
view, than that of their cure, and the emancipation of 
my country from the super-inhuman oppression under 
which she has so long and too patiently travailed; and 
that I confidently and assuredly hope, that, wild and 
chimerical as it may appear, there is still union and 
strength in Ireland to accomplish this noble enterprise. 
Of this I speak with the confidence of intimate 
knowledge, and with the consolation that appertains to 
that confidence. Think not, my lord, I say this for 
the petty gratification of giving you a transitory uneasi- 
ness; a man who never yet raised his voice to assert a 
lie, will not hazard his character with posterity by as- 
serting a falsehood on a subject so important to his 
country, and on an occasion like this. Yes,_my lords, 
a man who does not wish to have his epitaph written 
until his country is liberated, will not leave a weapon 
in the power of envy; nor a pretence to impeach the 
probity which he means to preserve even in the grave 
to which tyranny consigns him. 

[Here he was again interrupted by the court.li 



28 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

Again I say, that what I have spoken, was not in- 
tended for your lordship, whose situation I commis- 
erate rather than envy — my expressions were for my 
countrymen; if there is a true Irishman present, let 
my last words cheer him in the hour of his affliction. 

[//ere he was again interrupted. Lord JYorbury said 
he did not sit there to hear treason.'] 

I have always understood it to be the duty of a 
judge when a prisoner has been convicted, to pro- 
nounce the sentence of the law; I have also understood 
that judges sometimes think it their duty to hear with 
patience, and to speak with humanity; to exhort the 
victim of the laws, and to offer with tender benignity 
his opinions of the motives by which he was actuated 
in the crime, of which he had been adjudged guilty: 
that a judge has thought it his duty so to have done, I 
have no doubt — but where is the boasted freedom of 
your institutions, where is the vaunted impartiality, 
clemency, and mildness of your courts of justice, if an 
unfortunate prisoner, whom your policy, and not pure 
justice, is about to deliver into the hands of the exe- 
cutioner, is not suffered to explain his motives sincerely 
and truly, and to vindicate the principles by which he 
was actuated? 

My lords, it may be a part of the system of angry 
justice, to bow a man's mind by humiliation to the pur- 
posed ignominy of the scaffold; but worse to me than 
the intended disgrace, or the scaffold's terrors, would 
be the shame of such foul and unfounded imputations 
as have been laid against me in this court: you, my 
lord, are a judge, I am the supposed culprit; I am a 
man, you are a man also; by a revolution of power^ 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 29 

we might change places, though we never could change 
characters; if I stand at the bar of this court, and 
dare not vindicate my character, what a farce is your 
justice? If I stand at this bar and dare not vindicate 
my character, how dare you calumniate it? Does the 
sentence of death which your unhallowed policy in- 
flicts on my body, also condemn my tongue to silence, 
and my reputation to reproach? Your executioner 
may abridge the period of my existence; but while I 
exist, I shall not forbear to vindicate my character and 
motives from your aspersions; and as a man to whom 
fame is dearer than life, I will make the last use of 
life in doing justice to that reputation which is to 
live after me, and which is the only legacy I can leave 
to those I honor and love, and for whom I am proud to 
perish. As men, my lord, we must appear at the great 
day at one common tribunal, and it will then remain 
for the Searcher of all hearts to show a collective uni- 
verse who was engaged in the most virtuous actions, 
or actuated by the purest motives — my country's op- 
pressors or — 

[jHere he was interrupted^ and told to listen to the sen- 
tence of the law.^ 

My lord, will a dying man be denied the legal pri- 
vilege of exculpating himself, in the eyes of the com- 
munity, of an undeserved reproach thrown upon him 
during his trial, by charging him with ambition, and 
attempting to cast away, for a paltry consideration, 
the liberties of his country? Why did your lordship 
insult me? or rather why insult justice, in demanding of 
me why sentence of death should not be pronounced? 
I know, my lord, that form prescribes that you should 
3* 



30 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

ask the question; the form also presumes a right of 
answering. This no doubt may be dispensed with — 
and so might the whole ceremony of trial, since sen- 
tence was already pronounced at the castle, before 
your jury was empannelled; your lordships are but the 
priests of the oracle, and I submit; but I insist on the 
whole of the forms. 

\_Here the Court desired him to proceed.^ 
1 am charged with being an emissary of France! 
An emissary of France! And for what end? It is al- 
leged that I wished to sell the independence of my 
country! And for what end? Was this the object of 
my ambition? And is this the mode by which a tri- 
bunal of justice reconciles contradictions? No, I 
am no emissary; my ambition was to hold a place 
among the deliverers of my country; not in power, 
nor in profit, but in the glory of the achievement! Sell 
my country's independence to France! And for what? 
Was it for a change of masters? No! But for ambition! 

my country! was it personal ambition that could in- 
fluence me; had it been the soul of my actions, could 

1 not by my education and fortune, by the rank and con- 
sideration of my family, have placed myself among 
the proudest of her oppressors? My country was my 
idol; to it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing 
sentiment; and for it, I now offer up my life. O God! 
No my lord; I acted as an Irishman, determined on 
delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and 
unrelenting tyranny, and from the more galling yoke 
of a domestic faction, which is its joint partner and 
perpetrator in the parricide, for the ignominy of exist- 
ing with an exterior of splendor and of conscious de- 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 31 

pravity. It was the wish of my heart to extricate my 
country from this doubly riveted despotism. 

I wished to place her independence beyond tfie reach 
of any power on earth; I wished to exalt you to that 
proud station in the world. 

Connexion with France was indeed intended, but 
only as far as mutual interest would sanction or require. 
Were they to assume any authority inconsistent with 
the purest independence, it would be the signal for 
their destruction; we sought aid, and we sought it, as 
we had assurances we should obtain it; as auxiliaries 
in war — and allies in peace. 

Were the French to come as invaders or enemies, 
uninvited by the wishes of the people, I should oppose 
them to the utmost of my strength. Yes, my country- 
men, I should advise you to meet them on the beach, 
with a sword in one hand, and a torch in the other, I 
would meet them with all the destructive fury of war, 
and I would animate my countrymen to immolate them 
in their boats, before they had contaminated the soil of 
my country. If they succeeded in landing, and if forced 
to retire before superior discipline, I would dispute 
every inch of ground, burn every blade of grass, and 
the last intrenchment of liberty should be my grave. 
What I could not do myself, if I should fall, I should 
leave as a last charge to my countrymen to accompli^; 
because I should feel conscious that life, any more 
than death, is unprofitable, when a foreign nation holds 
my country in subjection. 

But it was not as an enemy that the succours of 
France were to land; I looked indeed for the assist- 
ance of France; but I wished to prove to France and 



32 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

to the world, that Irishmen deserved to be assisted! 
That they were indignant at slavery, and ready to as- 
sert the' independence and liberty of their country. 

I wished to procure for my country the guarantee 
which Washington procured for America. To pro- 
cure an aid, which, by its example, would be as im- 
portant as its valor, disciplined, gallant, pregnant with 
science and experience; who would perceive the good, 
and polish the rough points of our character; they 
would come to us as strangers, and leave us as friends, 
after sharing in our perils and elevating our destiny. 
These were my objects; not to receive new task-mas- 
ters, but to expel old tyrants; these were my views, 
and these only became Irishmen. It was for these ends 
I sought aid from France, because France, even as 
an enemy, could not be^ more implacable than the 
enemy already in the bosom of my country. 

[jHere he was interrupted by the court.'\ 

I have been charged with that importance in the ef- 
forts to emancipate my country, as to be considered 
the key-stone of the combination of Irishmen; or, as 
your lordship expressed it, "the life and blood of the 
conspiracy.**' You do me honor over-much. You have 
given to the subaltern all the credit of a superior. 
There are men engaged in this conspiracy^ who are 
not only superior to me, but even to your own concep- 
tions of yourself, my lord; men, before the splendor of 
whose genius and virtues, I should bow with respect- 
ful deference, and who would think themselves dis- 
honored to be called your friend — who would not dis- 
grace themselves by shaking your blood-stained hand, 
[//ere he was interrupted] 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 33 

What my lord, shall you tell me, on the passage to 
that scaffold, which that tyranny, of which you are 
only the intermediary executioner, has erected for my 
murder, that I am accountable for all the blood that 
has, and will be shed in this struggle of the oppressed 
against the oppressor? — shall you tell me this — and 
must I be so very a slave as not to repel it? 

I do not fear to approach the omnipotent Judge, to 
answer for the conduct of my whole life; and am 1 to 
be appalled and falsified by a mere remnant of mor- 
tality here? By you too, who, if it were possible to 
collect all the innocent blood that you have shed in 
your unhallowed ministry, in one great reservoir, your 
lordship might swim in it. 

[Here the Judge interfered,^ 

Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me 
with dishonor; let no man attaint my memory by be- 
lieving that I could have engaged in any cause but that 
of my country's liberty and independence; or that I 
could have become the pliant minion of power in the 
oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. The 
proclamation of the provisional government speaks for 
our views; no inference can be tortured from it to 
countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or sub- 
jection, humiliation, or treachery from abroad; I would 
not have submitted to a foreign invader, for the same 
reason that I would resist the foreign and domestic op- 
pressor; in the dignity of freedom I would have fought 
upon the threshhold of my country, and its enemy 
should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. 
Am J, who lived but for my country, and who have 
subjected myself to the dangers of the jealous and 
watchful oppressor, and the bondage of the grave, 



34 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

only to give my countrymen their rights, and my coun- 
try her independence, and am 1 to be loaded with cal- 
umny, and not suffered to resent or repel i?t — No, God 
forbid! 

If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in 
the concerns and cares of those who are dear to them 
in this transitory life — O ever dear and venerated shade 
of my departed father, look down with scrutiny upon 
the conduct of your suffering son; and see if I have 
even for a moment deviated from those principles of 
morality and patriotism which it was your care to in- 
stil into my youthful mind, and for which I am now to 
offer up my life. 

My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice — the 
blood which you seek, is not congealed by the arti- 
ficial terrors which surround your victim; it circulates 
warmly and unruffled, through the channels which 
God created for noble purposes, but which you are 
bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous, that they 
cry to heaven. — Be yet patient! I have but a few 
words more to say. — I am going to my cold and silent 
grave: my lamp of life is nearly extinguished: my race 
is run: the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into 
its bosom! I have but one request to ask at my de- 
parture from this world — it is the charity of its silence! 
Let no man write my epitaph: for as no man who 
knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not 
prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and 
me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb re- 
main uninscribed, until other times, and other men can 
do justice to my character; when my country takes 
her place among the nations of the earth, then, and 
not till then, let my epitaph be written. — I have done. 



BRITISH JUSTICE. 



FROM MR. SHERIDf n's SPEECH IMPEACHING WARREN HASTINGS. 

In the course of his exordium, after dwelling upon 
the great importance of the inquiry in which they 
were engaged, and disclaiming for himself and his 
brother managers any feeling of personal malice against 
the defendant, or any motive but that of retrieving the 
honor of the British name in India, and bringing down 
punishment upon those whose inhumanity and injus- 
tice had disgraced it, he thus proceeds to conciliate 
the court by a warm tribute to the purity of English 
justice: — 

"However, when I have said this, I trust your lord- 
ships will not believe that, because something is neces- 
sary to retrieve the British character, we call for an 
example to be made, without due and solid proof of 
the guilt of the person whom we pursue: — no, my 
lords, we know well that it is the glory of this con- 
stitution, that not the general fame or character of any 
man — not the w^eight or power of any prosecutor — 
no plea of moral or political expediency — not even the 
secret consciousness of guilt, which may live in the 
bosom of the Judge, can justify any British court in 
passing any sentence, to touch a hair of the head, or an 
atom in any respect, of the property, of the fame, of the 
liberty of the poorest or meanest subject that breathes 



36 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

the air of this just and free land. We know, my lords, 
that there can be no legal guilt without legal proof, and 
that the rule which defines the evidence is as much 
the law of the land as that which creates the crime. 
It is upon that ground we mean to stand." 

The acceptance, or rather exaction of the private 
present of one hundred thousand pounds, is thus ani- 
madverted upon: 

*'My lords, such was the distressed situation of the 
Nabob about a twelvemonth before Mr. Hastings met 
him at Chunar. It was a twelvemonth, I say, after 
this miserable scene — a mighty period in the progress 
of British rapacity — it was (if the Counsel will) after 
some natural calamities had aided the superior vigor 
of British violence and rapacity — it was after the 
country had felt other calamities besides the English — 
it was after the angry dispensations of Providence 
had, with a progressive severity of chastisement, 
visited the land with a famine one year, and with a 
Col. Hannay the next — it was after he, this Hannay, had 
returned to retrace the steps of his former ravages — 
it was after he and his voracious crew had come to 
plunder ruins which himself had made, and to glean 
from desolation the little that famine had spared, or 
rapine overlooked; — then it was that this miserable 
bankrupt prince marching through his country, be- 
sieged by the clamors of his starving subjects, who 
cried to him for protection through their cages — 
meeting the curses of some of his subjects, and the 
prayers of others — with famine at his heels, and re- 
proach following him, — then it was that this prince is 
represented as exercising this act of prodigal bounty 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 37 

to the very man whom he here reproaches — to the 
very man whose policy had extinguished his power, 
and whose creatures had desolated his country. To 
talk of a free-will gift! it is audacious and ridiculous to 
name the supposition. It was not a free-will gift. What 
was it then? Was it a bribe? or was it extortion? I 
shall prove it was both — it was an act of gross bribery 
and of rank extortion." 

Again he thus adverts to this present: — 
"The first thing he does is, to leave Calcutta, in order 
to go to the relief of the distressed Nabob. The se- 
cond thing, is to take one hundred thousand pounds 
from that distressed Nabob on account of the distress- 
ed company. And the third thing is to ask of the 
distressed company this very same sum on account of 
the distresses of Mr. Hastings. There never were 
three distresses that seemed so little reconcileable with 
one another." 



STATE NECESSITY. 



Anticipating the plea of State necessity, which might 
possibly be set up in defence of the measures of the 
Governor General, he breaks out into the following 
rhetorical passage — 

"State necessity! no my lords; that imperial tyrant, 
State JSTecessity^ is yet a generous despot, — bold is his 
demeanor, rapid his decisions, and terrible his grasp. 
But what he does, my lords, he dares avow, and 
avowing, scorns any other justification, than the great 
motives which placed the iron sceptre in his hand. But 
a quibbling, pilfering, prevaricating State necessity, 
that tries to skulk behind the skirts of justice; — a State 
necessity that tries to steal a pitiful justification from 
whispered accusations and fabricated rumors, — no! my 
lords, that is no State necessity; — tear off the mask, 
and you see coarse, vulgar avarice — you see specula- 
tion lurking under the gaudy disguise, and adding the 
guilt of libelling the public honor to its own private 
fraud. 

"My lords, I say this, because I am sure the mana- 
gers would make every allowance that State necessity 
could claim upon any great emergency. If any great 
man in bearing the arms of this country; — if any ad- 
miral, bearing the vengeance and the glory of Britain 
to distant coasts, should be compelled to some rash 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCB, &C. 39 

acts of violence, in order, perhaps, to give food to 
those who are shedding their blood for Britain; — if any 
great general, defending some fortress, barren itself, 
perhaps, but a pledge of the pride, and, with the pride 
of the power of Britain; if such a man were to * 
* * while he himself was * * at 
the top, like an eagle besieged in its imperial nest; — 
would the commons of England come to accuse or to 
arraign such acts of State necessity? No.^' 

His description of the desolation brought upon some 
provinces of Oude by the misgovernment of Col. Han- 
nay, and of the insurrection at Goruckpore against 
that officer in consequence, is, perhaps, the most mas- 
terly portion of the whole speech:— 

"If we could suppose a person to have come sud- 
denly in the country, unacquainted with any circum- 
stances that had passed since the days of Sujah ul 
Dowlah, he would naturally ask — what cruel liaud has 
wrought this wide desolation, what barbarian foe has 
invaded the country, has desolated its fields, depopu- 
lated its villages? He w^ould ask, what disputed suc- 
cession, civil rage, or frenzy of the inhabitants, had 
induced them to act in hostility to the w^ord of God, 
and the beauteous works of man? He would ask what 
religious zeal or frenzy had added to the mad despair 
and horrors of war? The ruin is unlike any thing that 
appears recorded in any age; it looks like neither the 
barbarities of men, nor the judgments of vindictive 
heaven. There is a waste of desolation, as if caused 
by fell destroyers, never meaning to return, and making 
but a short period of their rapacity. It looks as if 
some fabled monster had made its passage through the 



40 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &:C. 

country, whose pestiferous breath had blasted more 
than its voracious appetite could devour." 

"If there had been any men in the country, who had 
not their hearts and souls so subdued by fear, as to 
refuse to speak the truth at all upon such a subject, 
they would have told him there had been no war since 
the time of Sujah ul Dowlah — tyrant, indeed, as he 
was, but then deeply regFetted by his subjects — that 
no hostile blow of any enemy had been struck in that 
land — that there had been no disputed succession — no 
civil war — no religious frenzy. But that these were 
the tokens of British friendship, the marks left by the 
embraces of British allies — more dreadful than the 
blows of the bitterest enemy. ' They would tell him 
that these allies had converted a prince into a slave, to 
make him the principal in the extortion upon his sub- 
jects; — that their rapicity increased in proportion as 
the means of supplying their avarice diminished; that 
they made the sovereign pay as if they had a right to 
an increased price, because the labor of extortion and 
plunder increased. To such causes, they would tell 
him these calamities were owing. 

"Need I refer your lordships to the strong testimony 
of Major Naylor when he rescued Col. Hannay from 
their hands — where you see that this people, born to 
submission and bent to most abject subjection — that 
even they, in whose meek hearts injury had never yet 
begot resentment, nor even despair bred courage — that 
//leir hatred, f/ieir abhorrence of Col. Hannay was such 
that they clung round him by thousands ^id thousands; 
that when Major Naylor rescued him, they refused 
life from the hand that could rescue Hannay; — that 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCB, &C. 41 

they nourished tliis desperate consolation, that by their 
death they should at least thin the number of wrelches 
who suffered by his devastation and extortion. He 
says that, when he crossed the river, he found the poor 
wretches quivering upon the parched banks of the 
polluted stream, encouraging their blood to flow, and 
consoling themselves with the thought, that it would 
not sink into the earth, but rise to the common God of 
humanity, and cry aloud for vengeance on their des- 
troyers! — This warm description — which is no decla- 
mation of mine, but founded in actual fact, and in fair, 
clear proof before your lordships — speaks powerfully 
what the cause of these oppressions were, and the per- 
fect justness of those feelings that were occasioned by 
them. And yet, my lords, I am asked to prove wky 
these people arose in such concert; — 'there must have 
been machinations, forsooth, and the Begums' machi- 
nations, to produce all this!' — Because they were peo- 
ple in human shape; because patience under the de- 
tested tyranny of man is rebellion to the sovereignty of 
God; because allegiance to that Power that gives us 
the forms of men commands us to maintain the rights 
of men. And never yet was this truth dismissed from 
the human heart — never in any time, in any age — 
never in any clime, where rude man ever had any so- 
cial feeling, or where corrupt refinement had subdued 
all feelings — never was this one inextinguishable truth 
desli-oyed from the heart of man, placed, as it is, in 
the core and centre of it by his Maker, that man was 
not made the property of man; that human power is a 
trust for human benefit; and that when it is abused, re- 
venge becomes justice, if not the bounden duty of the • 
4* 



42 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

injured. These, my lord, were the causes why these 
people rose." 

Another passage in the second day's speech is re- 
markable, as exhibiting a sort of tourney of intellect 
between Sheridan and Burke, and in that field of 
abstract speculation, which was the favorite arena of 
the latter. Mr. Burke had, in opening the prosecution, 
remarked, that prudence is a quality incompatible with 
vice, and can never be effectively enlisted in its cause: — 
"I never," said he, "knew a man who was bad, fit for 
service that was good. There is always some disqual- 
ifying ingredient, mixing and spoiling the compound. 
The man seems paralytic on that side, his muscles 
there have lost their very tone and character — they 
cannot move. In short, the accomplishment of any 
thing good is a physical impossibility for such a man. 
There is decrepitude as well as distortion — he could 
not, if he would, is not more certain than that he would 
not, if he could." To this sentiment the allusions in 
the following passage refer: — 

"I am perfectly convinced that there is one idea 
which must arise in your lordships' minds as a subject 
of wonder— how a person of Mr. Hastings' reputed 
abilities can furnish such matter of accusation against 
himself For, it must be admitted that never was there 
a person who seems to go so rashly to work, with 
such an arrogant appearance of contempt for all con- 
elusions, that may be deduced from what he advances 
upon the subject. When he seems most earnest and 
laborious to defend himself, it appears as if he had but 
one idea uppermost in his mind — a determination not 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 43 

to care what he says, provided he keeps clear of fact. 
He knows that truth must convict him, and concludes 
e converso, that falsehood will acquit him; forgetting 
that there must be some connection, some system, some 
co-operation, or, otherwise, his host of falsities fall 
without an enemy, self-discomfited and destroyed. But 
of this he never seems to have had the slightest ap- 
prehension. He falls to work, an artificer of fraud, 
against all the rules of architecture; — he lays his orna- 
mental work first, and his massy foundation at the top 
of it; and thus his whole building tumbles upon his 
bead. Other people look well to their ground, choose 
their position, and watch whether they are likely to 
be surprised there; but he, as if in the ostentation of 
his heart, builds upon a precipice, and encamps upon 
a mine, from choice. He seems to have no one actu- 
ating principle, but a steady, persevering resolution 
not to speak the truth or to tell the fact. 

"It is impossible almost to treat conduct of this kind 
with perfect seriousness; yet I am aware that it ought 
to be more seriously accounted for, because I am sure 
it has been a sort of paradox, which must have struck 
your lordships, how any person having so many mo- 
tives to conceal — having so many reasons to dread de- 
tection, should yet go to work so clumsily upon the 
subject. It is possible, indeed, that it may raise this 
doubt — whether such a person is of sound mind enough 
to be a proper object of punishment; or at least it may 
give a kind of confused notion, that the guilt cannot be 
of so deep and black a grain, over which such a thin 
veil was thrown, and so little trouble taken to avoid 
detection. I am aware that, to account for this seem- 



44 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCB, &C. 

ing paradox, liistorians, poets, and even philosophers — 
at least of ancient times, have adopted the supersti- 
tious solution of the vulgar, and said that the gods de- 
prive men of reason whom they devote to destruction 
or to punishment. But to unassuming or unprejudiced 
reason, there is no need to resort to any supposed su- 
pernatural interference; for the solution will be found 
in the eternal rules that formed the mind of man, and 
gave a quality and nature to every passion that inhabits 
in it. 

"An honorable friend of mine, who is now, I believe, 
near me — a gentleman, to whom I never can on any 
occasion refer without feelings of respect, and, on this 
subject, without feelings of the most grateful homage; — 
a gentleman, whose abilities upon this occasion, as 
upon some former ones, happily for the glory of the 
age in which we live, are not entrusted merely to the 
perishable eloquence of the day, but will live to be 
the admiration of that hour when all of us are mute, 
and most of us forgotten; — that lionorable gentleman 
has told you that Prudence, the first of virtues, never 
can be used in the cause of vice. If, reluctant and 
diffident, I might take such a liberty, 1 should express 
a doubt, whether experience, observation, or history, 
will warrant us in fully assenting to this observation. 
It is a noble and a lovely sentiment, my lords, worthy 
the mind of him who uttered it, worthy that proud dis- 
dain, that generous scorn of the means and instruments 
of vice, which virtue and genius must ever feel. But 
I should doubt whether we can read the history of a 
Philip of Macedon, a Cassar, or a Cromwell, without 
confessing, that there have been evil purposes, bane- 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 45 

ful to the peace and to the rights of men, conducted — 
if I may not say, with prudence or with wisdom — yet 
with awful craft and most successful and commanding 
subtlety. If, however, I might make a distinction, I 
should say that it is the proud attempt to mix a variety 
of lordly crimes, that unsettles the prudence of the 
mind, and breeds this distraction of the brain. One 
master-passion, domineering in the breast, may win 
the faculties of the understanding to advance its pur- 
pose, and to direct to that object every thing that 
thought or human knowledge can effect; but, to suc- 
ceed, it must maintain a solitary despotism in the mind; 
each rival profligacy must stand aloof, or wait in abject 
vassalage upon its throne. For, the Power, that has 
not forbidden the entrance of evil passions into man's 
mind, has, at least, forbidden their union; — if they meet 
they defeat their objects, and their conquest, or their 
attempt at it, is tumult. Turn to the Virtues — how 
different the decree! Formed to connect, to blend, to 
associate, and to co-operate; bearing the same course, 
with kindred energies and harmonious sympathy, each 
perfect in its own lovely sphere, each moving in its 
wider or more contracted orbit, with different, but 
concentring powers, guided by the same influence of 
reason, and endeavoring at the same blessed end — the 
happiness of the individual, the harmony of the species, 
and the glory of the Creator. In the Vices, on the 
other hand, it is the discord that insures the defeat — 
each clamors to be heard in its own barbarous language; 
each claims the exclusive cunning of the brain; each 
thwarts and reproaches the other; and even while their 
fell rage assails with common hate, the peace and 



46 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

virtue of the world, the civil war among their own 
tunfiultuous legions defeats the purpose of the foul con- 
spiracy. These are the furies of the mind, my lords, 
that unsettle the understanding; these are the furies 
'that destroy the virtue Prudence — while the distracted 
brain and shivered intellect proclaim the tumult that is 
within, and bear iheir testimony, from tlie mouth of 
God himself, to the foul condition of the heart." 



FILIAL AFFECTION. 

"When I see in many of these letters the infirmity 
of age made a subject of mockery and lidicule; when 
I see the feelings of a son treated by Mr. Middleton as 
puerile and contemptible; when I see an order given 
by Mr. Hastings to harden that son's heart, to choke 
the struggling nature in his bosom; when I see them 
pointing to the son's name, and to his standard, while 
marching to oppress the mother, as to a banner that 
gives dignity, that gives a holy sanction and a rever- 
ence to their enterprize; when I see and hear these 
things done — when I hear them brought into three de- 
liberate defences set up against the charges of the 
commons, my lords, I own I grow puzzled and con- 
founded, and almost begin to doubt whether, where 
jBuch a defence can be offered, it may not be tolerated. 
"And yet, my lords, how can I support the claim of 
filial love by argument — much less the affection of a 
son to a mother — where love loses its awe, and vene- 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCB, &C. 47 

ration is ^mixed with tenderness? What can I say 
upon such a subject, what can I do but repeat the 
ready truths, which, with the quick impulse of the 
mind, must spring to the lips of^ every mgn on such a 
theme? Filial love! the morality of instinct, the sacra- 
ment of nature and duty — or rather let me say it is 
miscalled a duty, for it flows ffom the heart without 
effort, and is its delight, its indulgence, its enjoyment" 
It is guided, not by the slow dictates of TeasQn; it 
awaits not encouragement from reflection or from 
thought; it asks no aid of memory; it is an innate, but 
active, consciousness of having been the object of a 
thousand tender solicitudes, a ihousahd waking watch- 
ful cares, of meek anxiety and patient sacrifices, unre- 
marked and unrequited by the object. It is a gratitude 
founded upon a conviction of obligations, not remem- 
bered, but the more binding because not remembered, 
because conferred before the tender reason could ac- 
knowledge, or the infant memory record them — a 
gratitude and affection, which no circumstances should 
subdue, and which few can strengthen; a gratitude, in 
w^hich even injury from the object, though it may blend 
regret, should never breed resentment; an affection 
which can be increased only by the decay of those to 
whom we owe it, and whioh is then most fervent when 
the tremulous voice of age, resistless in its feebleness, 
enquires for the natural protector of its cold decline. 

"If these are the general sentiments of man, what 
must be their depravity, what must be their degen- 
eracy, who can blot out and erase from the bosom the 
virtue that is deepest rooted in the human heart, and 
twined within the cords of life itself — aliens from 



48 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

nature, apostates from humanity! And yet, if therfe be 
a crime more fell, more foul — if there be any thing 
worse than a wilful persecutor of his mother — it is to 
see a deliberate, reasoning instigator and abettor to the 
deed: — this it is that shocks, disgusts, and appals the 
mind more than the other — to view, not a wilful par- 
ricide, but a parricide by compulsion, a miserable 
wretch, not actuated by the stubborn evils of his own 
worthless heart, not driven by the fury of his own dis- 
tt'acted brain, but lending his sacrilegious hand, without 
any malice of his own, to answer the abandoned pur- 
poses of the human fiends that have subdued his will! 
To condemn crimes like these, we need not talk of 
laws or of human rules — their foulness, their deformity 
does not depend upon local constitutions, upon human 
institutes or religious creeds: — they are crimes — and 
the persons who perpetrate them are monsters who 
violate the primitive condition upon which the earth 
was given to man — they are guilty by the general ver- 
dict of the human kind." 



CONCLUSION OF MR. SHERIDAN'S SPEECH, 



IMPEACHING WARREN HASTINGS. 



We now come to the peroration, in which, skilfully 
and without appearance of design, it is contrived that 
the same sort of appeal to the purity of British justice 
with which the oration began, should, like the repeti- 
tion of a solemn strain of music, recur at its close — 
leaving in the minds of the judges a composed and con* 
centrated feeling of the great public duty they had to 
perform, in deciding upon the arraignment of guilt 
brought before them. The court of directors, it ap- 
pears, had ordered an inquiry into the conduct of the 
Begums, vi^ith a view to the restitution of their property, 
if it should appear that the charges against them were 
unfounded; but to this proceeding Mr. Hastings ob- 
jected, on the ground that the Begums themselves had 
not called for such interference in their favor, and that 
it was inconsistent with the "Majesty of Justice" to 
condescend to volunteer her services. The pompous 
and Jesuitical style in which this singular doctrine is 
expressed, in a letter addressed by the Governor-Gen- 
eral to Mr. Macpherson, is thus ingeniously turned to 
account by the orator, in winding up his masterly state- 
ment to a close: — 
5 



50 GEMS OF IRISJH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

*'And now before I come to the last magnificent para- 
graph, let me call the attention of those who, possibly 
think themselves capable of judging of the dignity and 
character of justice in this country; — let me call the 
attention of those who, arrogantly perhaps, presume 
that they understand what the features, what the duties 
of justice are here and in India; — let them learn a les- 
son from this great statesman, this enlarged, this liberal 
philosopher: — 'I hope I shall not depart from the sim- 
plicity of official language, in saying that the Majesty 
of Justice ought to be approached with solicitation, 
not descend to provoke or invite it, much less to de- 
base itself by the suggestion of wrongs and the promise 
of redress, with the denunciation of punishment before 
trial, and even before accusation.' This is the exhor- 
tation which Mr. Hastings makes to his counsel. This 
is the character which he gives of British justice. 

"But I will ask your lordships, do you approve this 
representation? Do you feel that this is the true image 
of justice? Is this the character of British justice? 
Are these her features? Is this her countenance? Is 
this her gait or her mien? No, I think even now I 
hear you calling upon me to turn from this vile libel, 
this base caricature, this Indian pagod, formed by the 
hand of guilty and knavish tyranny, to dupe the heart 
of ignorance — to turn from this deformed idol to the 
true majesty of justice here. Here^ indeed, I see a 
different form, enthroned by the sovereign hand of 
freedom — awful without severity — commanding with- 
out pride — vigilant and active without restlessness or 
suspicion — searching and inquisitive without meanness 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 51 

or debasement — not arrogantly scorning to stoop to 
the ^oice of afflicted innocence, and in its loveliest at- 
titude when bending to uplift the suppliant at its feet. 

"It is by the majesty, by the form of that justice, 
that I do conjure and implore your lordships to give 
your minds to this great business; that I exhort you to 
look, not so much to w^ords, which may be denied or 
quibbled away, but to the plain facts, — to weigh and 
consider the testimony in your own minds: we know 
the result must be inevitable. Let the truth appear 
and our cause is gained. It is this, I conjure your lord- 
ships, for your own honor, for the honor of the nation, 
for the honor of human nature, now entrusted to your 
care — it is this duty that the commons of England, 
speaking through us, claim at your hands. 

"They exhort you to it by every thing that calls 
sublimely upon the heart of man, by the majesty of 
that justice which this bold man has libelled, by the 
wide fame of your own tribunal, by the sacred pledge 
by which you swear in the solemn hour of decision, 
knowing that that decision will then bring you the 
highest reward that ever blessed the heart of man, the 
consciousness of having done the greatest act of mercy 
for the world, that the earth has ever yet received 
from any hand but Heaven.— My lords, I have done»'^ 



SPEECH OF MR. CURRAN^ 

IN B EHALF OP 

The Rev. CHARLES MASSY, 



AGAINST THE MARQUIS OF HEADFORD, FOR CRIMINAL CONVER- 
SATION W:iTH plaintiff's wife; at ENNIS assizes, CO. CLARE» 
ON THE 27th JULY, 1804. 

Damages laid at 40,000/.— Verdict, 10,0001. 



Mr. Curran. — Never so clearly as in the present 
instance have I observed that safeguard of justice, 
which providence hath placed in the nature of man. 
Such is the imperious dominion with which truth and 
reason wave their sceptre over the human intellect, 
that no solicitations however artful, no talent however 
commanding, can seduce it from its allegiance. In 
proportion to the humility of our submission to its 
rule do we rise into some faint emulation of that inef* 
fable and presiding divinity, whose characteristic at- 
tribute it is — to be coerced and bound by the inexo- 
rable laws of his own nature, so as to be all-wise and 
all'just from necessity, rather than election. You have 
seen it in the learned advocate w^ho has preceded me 
most peculiarly and strikingly illustrated — you have 
seen eve^i his great talents, perhaps the first in any 
country, languishing under a cause too weak to mrry 
him, and too heavy to be carried by him. He was, 
forced to dismiss his natural candor and sincerity^ and 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 53 

having no merits in his case, to substitute the dignity 
of his own manner, the resources of his own ingenuity, 
over the overwhelming diificulties with which he was 
surrounded. Wretched client! unhappy advocate! what 
a combination do you form! But such is the condition 
of guilt — its commission mean and tremulous — its de- 
fence artificial and insincere — its prosecution candid 
and simple — its condemnation dignified and austere. 
Such has been the defendant's guilt — such his defence — 
such shall be my address — and such, 1 trust, your ver- 
dict. The learned counsel has told you, that this un- 
fortunate woman is not to be estimated at forty thousand 
pounds — fatal and unquestionable is the truth of this 
assertion. Alas! gentlemen, she is no longer worth any 
thing — faded, fallen, degraded, and disgraced, she is 
worth less than nothing! But it is for the honor, the 
hope, the expectation, the tenderness, and the comforts 
that have been blasted by the defendant, and have fled 
for ever, that you are to remunerate the plaintiff', by 
the punishment of the defendant. It is not her present 
value which you are to weigh — but it is her value at 
that time, when she sat basking in a husband's love, 
w^ith the blessing of heaven on her head, and its purity 
in her heart: when she sat amongst her family, and ad- 
ministered the morality of the parental board: — esti- 
mate that past value — compare it with its present de- 
plorable diminution — and it may lead you to form some 
judgment of the severity of the injury, and the extent 
of the compensation. 

The learned counsel has told you that you ought to be 
cautious, because your verdict cannot be set aside for 
excess. The assertion is just, but has he treated you 
6* 



54 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCB, &C. 

fairly by its application? His cause would not allo\r 
him to be fair — for, why is the rule adopted in this* 
single action? Because, this being peculiarly an injury 
to the most susceptible of all human feelings — it leaves 
the injury of the husband to be ascertained by the sensi- 
bility of the jury, and does not presume to measure 
the justice of their determination by the cold and chilly 
exercise of his own discretion. In any other action it 
is easy to calculate. If a tradesman's arm is cut off, 
you*can measure the loss which he has sustained — but 
the wound of feeling, and the agony of the heart, 
cannot be judged by any standard with which I am 
acquainted. And you are unfairly dealt with, when 
you are called on to appreciate the present suffering of 
the husband by the present guilt, delinquency, and 
degradation of his wife. As well might you, if called 
on to give compensation to a man for the murder of 
his dearest friend — find the measure of his injury, by 
weighing the ashes of the dead. But it is not, gentle- 
men of the jury, by weighing the ashes of the dead, that 
you would estimate the loss of the survivor. 

The learned counsel has referred you to other cases,, 
and other countries, for instances of moderate verdicts. 
I can refer you to some authentic instances of just 
ones. In the next country^ fifteen thousand pounds^ 
against a subaltern officer. In Travers and McCarthy,, 
five thousand pounds against a servant. In Tighe 
against Jones, ten thousand pounds against a man not 
worth a shilling. What then ought to be the rule^. 
where rank, and power, and wealth, and station, have 
combined to render the example of his crime more 
dangerous — to make his guilt more odious — to make. 



GEMS OP IRISH BLOaUENCE, &C. 65 

the injury to the plaintiff more grievous, because more 
conspicuous? I affect no levelling familiarity when I 
speak of persons in the higher ranks of society — dis- 
tinctions of orders are necessary, and I always feel 
disposed to treat them with respect — but when it is 
my duty to speak of the crimes by which they are 
degraded, I am not so fastidious as to shrink from 
their contact, when to touch them is essential to their 
dissection. In this action, the condition, the conduct, 
and circumstances of the party, are justly and peculi- 
arly the objects of your consideration. Who are the par- 
ties? The plaintiff, young, amiable, of family and edu- 
cation. Of the generous disinterestedness of his heart 
you can form an opinion even from the evidence of 
the defendant, that he declined an alliance, which 
would have added to his fortune and consideration^ 
and which he rejected for an unportioned union with 
his present wife. She too, at that time young, beautiful 
and accomplished; and feeling her affection for her 
husband increase, in proportion as she remembered the 
ardor of his love, and the sincerity of his sacrifice. 
Look now to the defendant! — I blush to name him! — 
I blush to name a rank which he has tarnished — and a 
patent that he has worse than cancelled. High in the 
army — high in the state — the hereditary counsellor of 
the king — of wealth incalculable — and to this last I 
advert with an indignant and contemptuous satisfac- 
tion, because, as the only instrument of his guilt and 
shame, it will be the means of his punishment, and the 
source of compensation for bis guilt. 

But let me call your attention distinctly to the 
questions you have to consider. The first is the fact 



56 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

of guilt. Is this noble lord guilty? His counsel knew 
too well how tliey would have mortified his vanity^ 
had they given the smallest reason to doubt the splendor 
of his achievement. Against any such humiliating sus- 
picion he had taken the most studious precaution by 
the publicity of the exploit. And here, in this court, 
and before you and in the face of the country, has he 
the unparalleled effrontery of disdaining the resort 
even to a confession of innocence — Ilis guilt estab- 
lished, your next question is, the damages you should 
give. You have been told, that the amount of the 
damages should depend on circumstances. You w^ill 
consider these circumstances, whether of aggravation 
or mitigation. His learned counsel contend, that the 
plaintiff has been the author of his own suffering, and 
ought to receive no compensation for the ill conse- 
quences of his own conduct. In what part of the 
evidence do you find any foundation for that assertion? 
He indulged her, it seems, in dress — generous and at- 
tached, he probably indulged her in that point beyond 
his means; and the defendant now imprudently calls 
on you to find an excuse for the adulterer in the fond- 
ness and liberality of her husband. But you have been 
told that the husband connived. Odious and impru- 
dent aggravation of injury — to add calumny to insult, 
and outrage to dishonor. From whom, but a man 
hackneyed in the paths of shame and vice — from whom, 
but from a man having no compunctions in his own 
breast to restrain him, could you expect such brutal 
disregard for the feelings of others — from whom, but 
the cold-blooded veteran seducer — from what, but 
from the exhausted mind — the habitual community 



GEMS OF IRISH BLOaUENCE, &C. 57 

with shame — from what, but the habitual contempt of 
virtue and of man, could you have expected the arro- 
gance, the barbarity, and folly of so foul — because so 
false an imputation? He should have reflected — and 
have blushed, before he suffered so vile a topic of de- 
fence to have passed his lips. But, ere you condemn, 
let him have the benefit of the excuse, if the excuse 
be true. You must have observed how his counselj 
fluttered and vibrated, between what they called con-i 
nivance and injudicious confidence; and how, in af- 
fecting to distinguish they have confounded them both 
together. If the plaintiff has connived, I freely say to 
you, do not reward the wretch who has prostituted his 
wife, and surrendered his own honor — do not compen- 
sate the pander of his own shame, and the willing in- 
strument of his own infamy. But as there is no sum so 
low to which such a defence, if true, ought not to reduce 
your verdict, so neither is any so high to which such 
a charge ought not to inflame it, if such a charge be 
false. Where is the single fact in this case on which 
the remotest suspicion of connivance can be hung? 
Odiously has the defendant endeavored to make the 
softest and most amiable feelings of the heart the pre- 
text of his slanderous imputations. An ancient and 
respectable prelate, the husband of his wife's sister, 
chained down to the bed of sickness, perhaps to the 
bed of death. In that distressing situation my client 
suffered that wife to be the hearer of consolation to 
the bosom of her sister — he had not the heart to refuse 
her — and the softness of his nature is now charged on 
him as a crime. He is now insolently told, that he 
connived at his dishonor, and that he ought to have 



58 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

foreseen, that the mansion of sickness and of sorrow 
would have been made the scene of assignation and of 
guilt. On this charge of connivance I will not farther 
weary you or exhaust myself — I will add nothing more 
than that it is as false as it is impudent — that in the 
evidence it has not a color of support; and that by 
your verdict you should mark it with reprobation. 
The other subjext, namely, that he was indiscreet in 
his confidence, does I think, call for some discussion — 
for I trust you see that I effect not any address to your 
passions, by which you may be led away from the 
subject — I presume merely to separate the parts of 
this affecting case, and to lay them item by item before 
you, with the coldness of detail, and not with any 
coloring or display of fiction or of fancy. Honorable 
to himself was his unsuspecting confidence, but fatal 
must we admit it to have been, when we look to the 
abuse committed upon it: but where was the guilt of 
this indiscretion? He did admit this noble lord to pass 
his threshold as his guest. Now the charge which 
this noble lord builds on this indiscretion is — "thou 
fool — thou hadst confidence in my honor — and that was 
a guilty indiscretion. Thou simpleton, thou thoughtest 
that an admitted and a cherished guest, would have 
respected the laws of honor and hospitality, and thy 
indiscretion was guilt. Thou thoughtest that he would 
have shrunk from the meanness and barbarity of re- 
quiting kindness with treachery — and thy indiscretion 
was guilt." 

Gentlemen, what horrid alternative in the treatment 
of wives would such reasoning recommend? Are they 
to be immured by worse than eastern barbarity? Are 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 69 

their principles to be depraved, their passions sub- 
limated, every finer motive of action extinguished by 
the inevitable consequences of thus treating them like 
slaves? Or is a liberal and generous confidence in 
them to be the passport of the adulterer, and the justi- 
fication of his crimes? 

Honorably, but fatally for his own repose, he was 
neither jealous, suspicious, nor cruel. He treated the 
defendant with the confidence of a friend — and his 
wife with the tenderness of a husband. He did leave 
to the noble marquis the physical possibility of com- 
mitting against him the greatest crime which can be 
perpetrated against a being of an amiable heart and 
refined education. In the middle of the day, at the 
moment of divine worship, when the miserable hus- 
band was on his knees, directing the prayers and 
thanksgiving of his congregation to their God — that 
moment did the remorseless adulterer choose to carry 
off the deluded victim from her husband — from her 
child — from her character — from her happiness — as 
if, not content to leave his crime confined to its miser- 
able aggravations, unless he gave it a cast and colour 
of factitious sacrilege and impiety. Oh! how happy 
had it been when he arrived at the bank of the river 
with the ill-fated fugitive, ere yet he had committed 
her to that boat, of which, like the fabled barque of 
Styx, the exile was eternal, how happy at that moment, 
so teeming with misery and with shame, if you, my 
lord, had met him, and could have accosted him in the 
character of that good genius which had abandoned 
him. How impressively might you have pleaded the 
cause of the father, of the child, of the mother, and 



60 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

even of the worthless defendant himself. You would 
have said, "is this the requital that you are about to 
make for respect and kindness, and confidence in your 
honor? Can you deliberately expose this young man, 
in the bloom of life, with all his hopes before him? Can 
you expose him, a wretched outcast from society, to 
the scorn of a merciless world? Can you set him 
adrift upon the tempestuous ocean of his own passions, 
at this early season when they are most headstrong; 
and can you cut him out from the moorings of those 
domestic obligations by whose cable he might ride at 
safety from their turbulence? Think of, if you can 
conceive it, what a powerful influence arises from the 
sense of home, from the sacred religion of the hearth 
in quelling the passions, in reclaiming the wanderings, 
in correcting the discords of the human heart; do not 
cruelly take from him the protection of these attach- 
ments. But if you have no pity for the father, have 
mercy at least upon his innocent and helpless child; do 
not condemn him to an education scandalous or ne- 
glected — do not strike him into that most dreadful of 
all human conditions, the orphanage that springs not 
froQi the grave, that falls not from the hand of Provi- 
dence, or the stroke of death; but comes before its 
time, anticipated and inflicted by the remorseless cru- 
elty of parental guilt. For the poor victim aerself — 
not yet immolated — while yet balancing upon the pivot 
of her destiny, your heart could not be cold, nor your 
tongue be wordless. You would have said to him, pause 
my lord, while there is yet a moment for reflection. 
What are your motives, what your views, what your 
prospects from what you are about to do? You are a 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 61 

married man, the husband of the most amiable and 
respectable of women; you cannot look to the chance 
of marrying this wretched fugitive; between you and 
such an event there are two sepulchres to pass. What 
are your inducements? Is it love, think you? No, — 
do not give that name to any attraction you can find in 
the faded refuse of a violated bed. Love is a noble 
and generous passion; it can be founded only on a pure 
and ardent friendship, on an exalted respect, on an 
implicit confidence in its object. Search your heart, 
examine your judgment, do you find the semblance of 
any one of these sentiments to bind you to her? what 
could degrade a mind to which nature or education had 
given port, or stature, or character, into a friendship 
for her? Could you repose upon her faith? Look in 
her face, my lord; she is at this moment giving you 
the violation of the most sacred of human obligations 
as the pledge of her fidelity. She is giving you the 
most irrefragable proof that, as she is deserting her 
husband for you, so she would without a scruple aban- 
don you for another. Do you anticipate any pleasure 
you might feel in the possible event of your becoming 
the parents of a common child? She is at this moment 
proving to you that she is as dead to the sense of parental 
as of conjugal obligation; and that she would abandon 
your offspring to-morrow, with the same facility with 
which she now deserts her own. Look then at her 
conduct, as it is, as the world must behold it, black- 
ened by every aggravation that can make it either 
odius or contemptible, and unrelieved by a single cir- 
cumstance of mitigation, that could palliate its guilt, 
or retrieve it from abhorrence. 
6 



62 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

Mean, however, and degraded as this women must 
be, she will still (if you take her with you,) jjave strong 
and heavy claims upon you. The force of such claims 
does certainly depend upon circumstances; before, 
therefore, you expose her fate to the dreadful risque 
of your caprice or ingratitude, in mercy to her, weigh 
well the confidence she can place in your future justice 
and honor: at that future time, much nearer tlian you 
think, by what topics can her cause be pleaded to a 
sated appetite, to a heart that repels her, to a just 
judgment in which she never could have been valued 
or respected? Here is not the case of an unmarried 
woman, with whom a pure and generous friendship 
may insensibly have ripened into a more serious at- 
tachment, until at last her heart became too deeply 
pledged to here-assumed: if so circumstanced, with- 
out any husband to betray, or child to desert, or motive 
to restrain, except what related solely to herself, her 
anxiety for your happiness made her overlook every 
other consideration, and commit her history to your 
honor; in such a case, (the strongest and the highest 
that man's imagination can suppose;) in which you at 
least could see nothing but the most noble and disin- 
terested sacrifice; in which you could find nothing but 
what claimed from you the most kind and exalted sen- 
timent of tenderness, and devotion, and respect, and in 
which the most fastidious rigour would find so much 
more subject for sympathy than blame: — let me ask 
you, could you, even in that case, answer for your 
own justice and gratitude? I do not allude to the long 
and pitiful catalogue of paltry adventures, in w^hich it 
seems your time has been employed. The coarse and 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 63 

vulgar succession of casual connexions, joyless, love- 
less, and unendeared: but do you not find upon your 
memory some trace of an engagement of the character 
I have sketched? — Has not your sense of what you 
would owe in such a case, and to such a woman, been 
at least once put to the test of experiment? Has it not 
once at least happened that such a woman, with all the 
resolution of strong faith, flung her youth, her hope, 
her beauty, her talent upon your bosom, weighed you 
against the world, which she found but a feather in 
the scale, and took you as an equivalent? How did 
you then acquit yourself? Did you prove yourself 
worthy of the sacred trust reposed in you? Did your 
spirit so associate with hers, as to leave her no room 
to regret the splendid and disinterested sacrifice she 
had made? Did her soul find a pillow in the tender- 
ness of yours, and support in its firmness? Did you 
preserve her high in your own consciousness, proud in 
your admiration and friendship, and happy in your af- 
fection? You might have so acted, tmd the man that 
was worthy of her would have perished rather than 
not so act, as to make her delighted with jhaving con- 
fided so sacred a trust to his honor. Did you so act? 
Did she feel that, however precious to your heart, she 
was still more exalted and honored in your reverence 
and respect? Or did she find you coarse and paltry, 
fluttering and unpurposed, unfeeling, and ungrateful? 
You found her a fair and blushing flower, its beauty 
and its fragrance bathed in the dews of heaven. Did 
you so tenderly transplant it, as to preserve that beauty 
and fragrance unimpaired? Or did you so rudely cut 
it, as to interrupt its nutriment, to waste its sweetness, 



64 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &LC, 

to blast its beauty, to bow down its faded and sicklj 
head? And did you at last fling it like 'a loathsome 
weed away?' If then to such a woman, so clothed with 
every title that could ennoble, and exalt, and endear 
her to the heart of man, you would be cruelly and ca- 
priciously deficient, how can a wretched fugitive like 
this, in every point her contrast, hope to find you just? 
Send her then away. Send her back to her home, to 
her child, to her husband, to herself." Alas, there 
was none to hold such language to this noble defendant; 
he did not hold it to himself. But he paraded his des- 
picable prize in his own carriage, with his own re- 
tinue, his own servants — this veteran Paris hawked 
his enamoured Helen from this western quarter of the 
island to a sea-port in the eastern, crowned with the 
acclamations of a senseless and grinning rabble, glory- 
ing and delighted, no doubt, in the leering and scof- 
fing admiration of grooms, and hostlers, and waiters, as 
he passed. 

In this odiuus contempt Of every personal feeling of 
public opinion, of common humanity, did he parade 
this woman to the sea-port, whence he transported his 
precious cargo to a country, where her example may 
be less mischievous than in her own; where I agree 
with my learned colleague in heartily wishing he may 
remain with her for ever. We are too poor, too sim- 
ple, too unadvanced a country, for the example of such 
achievements. When the relaxation of morals is the 
natural growth and consequence of the great progress 
of arts and wealth, it is accompanied by a refinement, 
that makes it less gross and shocking: but for such pal- 
liations we are at least a century too young. I advise 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 65 

you, therefore, most earnestly to rebuke this budding 
mischief, by letting the wholesome vigor and chas- 
tisement of a liberal verdict speak what you think of 
its enormity. In every point of view in which I can 
look at the subject, I see you are called upon to give a 
verdict of bold, and just, and indignant, and exemplary 
compensation. The injury of the plaintiff demands it 
from your justice; the delinquency of the defendant 
provokes it by its enormity. The rank on which he 
has relied for impunity calls upon you to tell him, that 
crime does not ascend to the rank of the perpetrator, but 
the perpetrator sinks from his rank, and descends to 
the level of his delinquency. The style and mode of 
his defence is a gross aggravation of his conduct, and 
a gross insult upon you. Look upon the different sub- 
jects of his defence as you ought, and let him profit by 
them as he deserves; vainly presumptuous upon his 
rank, he wishes to overawe you by the despicable 
consideration. He next resorts to a cruel aspersion 
upon the character of the unhappy plaintiff, whom he 
had already wounded beyond the possibility of re- 
paration; he has ventured to charge him with con- 
nivance: as to that, I will only say, gentlemen of the 
jury, do not give this vain boaster a pretext for saying, 
that if her husband connived in the offence, the jury 
also connived in the reparation. But he has pressed 
another curious topic upon you. After the plaintiff had 
cause to suspect his designs, and the likelihood of their 
being fatally successful, he did not then act precisely 
as he ought. Gracious God, what an argument for 
him to dare to advance! It is saying this to him: "I 
abused your confidence, your hospitality; I laid a base 
6* 



66 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

plan for the seduction of the wife of your bosom; I 
succeeded at last, so as to throw in upon you that most 
dreadful of all suspicions to a man fondly attached, 
proud of his wife's honor, and tremblingly alive to his 
own; that you were possibly a dupe to the confidence 
in the wife, as much as in the guest: in this so pitiable 
distress, which I myself had studiously and deliberately 
contrived for you, between hope and fear, and doubt 
and love, and jeafousy and shame; one moment shrink- 
ing from the cruelty of your suspicion; the next, fired 
with indignation at the facility and credulity of your 
acquittal; in this labyrinth of doubt, in this phrensy of 
suffering, you were not collected and composed; you 
did not act as you might have done, if I had not worked 
you to madness; and upon that very madness which I 
have inflicted upon you, upon the very completion of 
my guilt, and of your misery, I will build my defence. 
You did not act critically right, and therefore are 
unworthy of compensation." Gentlemen, can you be 
dead to the remorseless atrocity of such a defence! 
And shall not your honest verdict mark it as it de- 
serves? But let me go a little further; let me ask you, 
for I confess I have no distinct idea of what should be 
the conduct of a husband so placed, and who is to act 
critically right? Shall he lock her up, or turn her out, 
or enlarge or abridge her liberty of acting as she 
pleases? Oh, dreadful Areopagus of the tea-table! how 
formidable thy inquests, how tremendous thy condem- 
nations! In the first case he is brutal and barbarous, 
an odious eastern despot. In the next; what: turn an 
innocent woman out of his house, without evidence or 
proof, but merely because he is vile and mean enough 



GEIVIS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C 67 

to suspect the wife of his bosom, and the mother of 
his child! Between these extremes, what intermediate 
degree is he to adopt? I put this question to you at 
this moment, — uninfluenced by any passion as you now 
are, but cool and collected, and uninterested as you 
must be, do you see clearly this proper and exact line, 
which the plaintiff* should have pursued? I must question 
if you do? But if you did or could, must you not say, 
that he was the last man from whom you should ex- 
pect the coolness to discover, or the steadiness to 
pursue it? And yet this is the outrageous and insolent 
defence that is put forward to you. My miserable 
client, w^ien his brain was on fire, and every fiend of 
hell was let loose upon his heart, he should then, it 
seems, have placed himself before his mirror, he should 
have taught the stream of agony to flow decorously 
down his forehead; he should have composed his 
features to harmony; he should have writhed with 
grace, and groaned in melody. But look farther to 
this noble defendant, and his honorable defence; the 
wretched woman is to be successively the victim of 
seduction, and of slander. She it seems received 
marked attentions — here, I confess, I felt myself not a 
little at a loss. The witnesses could not describe what 
these marked attentions were, or are. They consisted 
not, if you believe the witnesses that swore to them, 
in any personal approach, or contact whatsoever; nor 
in any unwarrantable topics of discourse. Of what 
materials then were they composed? Why, it seems, 
a gentleman had the insolence at table to propose to 
her a glass of wine, and she, oh most abandoned lady! 
instead of flying like an angry parrot at his head, and 



68 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

besmirching and bescratching him for his insolence, 
tamely and basely replies, ^'port, sir, if you please." 
But, gentlemen, why do I advert to this folly, this non- 
sense? Not surely to vindicate from censure the most 
innocent, and the most delightful intercourse of social 
kindness, or harmless and cheerful courtesy — "where 
virtue is, these are most virtuous." But I am solicit- 
ing your attention, and your feeling, to the mean and 
odious aggravation; to the unblushing and remorseless 
barbarity, of falsely aspersing the wretched woman he 
had undone. One good he has done; he has disclosed 
to you the point in which he can feel; for how imperi- 
ous must that avarice be, which could resort to so vile 
an expedient of frugality? Yes, I will say, that with 
the common feelings of a man, he would have rather 
suffered his thirty thousand a year to go as a compen- 
sation to the plaintiff, than saved a shilling of it by so 
vile an expedient of economy. He would rather have 
starved with her in a gaol, he would rather have sunk 
with her into the ocean, than have so villified her, than 
have so degraded himself. But it seems, gentlemen, 
and indeed you have been told, that long as the course 
of his gallantries has been, and he has grown grey in 
the service, it is the first time he has been called upon 
for damages. To how many might it have been fortu- 
nate, if he had not that impunity to boast? Your ver- 
dict will, I trust, put an end to that encouragement to 
guilt, that is built upon impunity: the devil it seems 
has saved the noble marquis harmless in the past; but 
your verdict will tell him the term of that indemnity is 
expired, that his old friend and banker has no more 
effects in his hands, and that if he draws any more 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 69 

upon him, he must pay his own bills himself. You will 
do much good by doing so; you may not enlighten his 
conscience, nor touch his heart, but his frugality will 
understand the hint. It will adopt the prudence of age, 
and deter him from pursuits, in which, though he may 
be insensible of shame, he will not be regardless of ex- 
pense. You will do more, you will not only punish 
him in his tender point, but you will weaken him in his 
strong one, his money. We have heard much of this 
noble lord's wealth, and much of his exploits, but not 
much of his accomplishments or his wit. 1 know not 
that his verses have soared even to the poet's corner. 
I have heard it said, than an ass laden with gold could 
find his way through the gate of the strongest city. 
But, gentlemen, lighten the load upon his back, and you 
will completely curtail the mischievous faculty of a 
grave animal whose momemtum lies, not in his agility, 
but his weight; not in the quantity of motion, but the 
quantity of his matter. There is another ground on 
which you are called upon to give most liberal dam- 
ages, and that has been laid by the unfeeling vanity of 
the defendant. This business has been marked by the 
most elaborate publicity. It is very clear that he has 
been allured by the glory of the chase, and not the 
value of the game. The poor object of his pursuit 
could be of no value to him, or he could not have so 
wantonly, and cruelly, and unnecessarily abused her. 
He might easily have kept this unhappy intercourse an 
unsuspected secret. Even if he wished for her elope- 
ment, he might easily have so contrived it, that the 
place of her retreat would be profoundly undiscover- 
able; yet, though even the expense, a point so tender 



70 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

to his delicate sensibility, of concealing, could not be 
a one-fortieth of the cost of publishing her, his vanity- 
decided him in favor of glory and publicity. By that 
election he has in fact put forward the Irish nation, and 
its character, so often and so variously calumniated, 
upon its trial before the tribunal of the empire; and 
your verdict will this day decide, whether an Irish jury 
can feel with justice, and spirit, upon a subject that in- 
volves conjugal affection and comfort, domestic honor 
and repose — the certainty of issue — the w^eight of 
public opinion — the gilded and presumptuous crimi- 
nality of overweening rank and station. I doubt not, 
but he is at this moment reclined on a silken sofa, anti- 
cipating that submissive and modest verdict, by w^hich 
you will lean gently on his errors; and expecting from 
your patriotism, no doubt, that you will think again, and 
again, before you condemn any great portion of the im- 
mense revenue of a great absentee, to be detained in the 
nation that produced it, instead of being transmitted, as 
it ought, to be expended in the splendor of another 
country. He is now probably waiting for the arrival 
of the report of this day, which I understand, a famous 
note-taker has been sent hither to collect. (Let not 
the gentleman be disturbed.) Gentlemen, let me as- 
sure you, it is more, much more the trial of you, than 
of the noble marquis, of which this imported recorder is 
at this moment collecting the materials. His noble em- 
ployer is now expecting a report to the following effect: 
"Such a day came on to be tried at Ennis, by a special 
jury, the cause of Charles Massy against the most 
noble, the Marquis of Headford. It appeared, that 
the plaintifTs wife was young, beautiful, and capti- 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 71 

vating. The plaintiff himself, a person fond of this 
beautiful creature to distraction, and both doating on 
their child; but the noble marquis approached her, the 
plume of glory nodded on his head. Not the goddess 
Minerva, but the goddess Venus had lighted up his 
casque, 'the fire that never tires — such as many a lady 
gay had been dazzled with before.' At the first ad- 
vance she trembled, at the second she struck to the 
redoubted son of Mars, and pupil of Venus. The jury 
saw it was not his fault; (it was an Irish jury;) they 
felt compassion for the tenderness of the mother's 
heart, and for the warmth of the lover's passion. The 
jury saw on the one side a young, entertaining gallant, 
on the other, a beauteous creature, of charms irresisti- 
ble. They recollected, that Jupiter had been always 
successful in his amours, although Vulcan had not 
always escaped some awkward accidents. The jury 
was composed of fathers, brothers, husbands — but they 
had not the vulgar jealousy, that views little things of 
that sort with rigor, and wishing to assimilate their coun- 
try in every respect to England now that they are united 
to it, they, like English gentlemen, returned to their 
box with a verdict of six pence damages and six pence 
costs." Let this be sent to England. I promise you, your 
odious secret will not be kept better than that of the 
wretched Mrs. Massy. There is not a bawdy chroni- 
cle in London, in which the epitaph which you would 
have written on yourselves will not be published, and 
our enemies will delight in the spectacle of our preco- 
cious depravity, in seeing that we can be rotten before 
we are ripe. I do not suppose it; I do not, cannot, 
will not believe it; I will not harrow up myself with the 
anticipated apprehension. 



T2 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCEj tc. 

There is another consideration, gentlemen, which I 
think most imperiously demands even a vindictive 
award of exemplary damages — and that is the breach 
of hospitality. To us peculiarly does it belong to 
avenge the violation of its altar. The hospitality of 
other countries is a matter of necessity or convention, 
in savage nations of the first, in polished, of the latter, 
btU the hospitality of an Irishman is not the running 
account of posted and ledgered courtesies, as in other 
countries; — it springs like all his qualities, his faults, 
his virtues — directly from his heart. The heart of an 
Irishman is by nature bold, and he confides; it is tender, 
and he loves; it is generous, and he gives; it is social, 
and he is hospitable. This sacrilegious intruder has 
profaned the religion of that sacred altar so elevated in 
our w^orship, so precious to our devotion; and it is our 
privilege to avenge the crime. You must either pull 
down the altar, and abolish the worship, or you must 
preserve its sanctity undebased. There is no alterna- 
tive between the universal exclusion of all mankind 
from your threshold, and the most rigorous punishment 
of him who is admitted and betrays. This defendant 
has been so trusted, has so betrayed, and you ought to 
make him a most signal example. 

Gentlemen, I am the more disposed to feel the 
strons^est indisrnation and abhorrence at this* odious 
conduct of the defendant, when I consider the deplo- 
rable condition to which he has reduced the plaintiff, 
and perhaps the still more deplorable one that he has 
in prospect before him. What a progress has he to 
travel through, before he can attain the peace and 
tranquillity which he has lost? How like the wounds 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 73 

of the body are those of the mind! how burning the 
fever! how painful the suppuration! how slow, how 
hesitating, how relapsing the process to convalescence? 
Through what a variety of suffering, what new scenes 
and changes, must my unhappy client pass, ere he caa 
re-attain, should he ever re-attain, that health of soul 
of which he has been despoiled by the cold and delib- 
erate machinations of this practised and gilded seducer? 
If, instead of drawing upon his incalculable wealth 
for a scanty retribution, you were to stop the progress 
of his despicable achievements by reducing him to 
actual poverty, you could not even so punish him 
beyond the scope of his offence, nor reprise the plain- 
tiff beyond the measure of his suffering. Let me re- 
mind you, that in this action, the law not only empow- 
ers you, but that its policy commands you, to consider 
the public example, as well as the individual injury, 
when you adjust the amount of your verdict. I confess 
I am most anxious that you should acquit yourselves 
worthily upon this important occasion. 1 am addres- 
sing you as fathers, husbands, brothers. 1 am anxious 
that a feeling of those high relations should enter into, 
and give dignity to, your verdict But I confess, I feel 
a tenfold solicitude when I remember that I am ad- 
dressing you as my countrymen, as Irishmen, whose 
characters as jurors, as gentlemen, must find either 
honor or degradation in the result of your decision. 
Small as must be the distributive share of that national 
estimation, that can belong to so unimportant an indi- 
vidual as myself, yet I do own I am tremblingly solici- 
tous for his fate. Perhaps it appears of more value 
to me, because it is embarked on the same bottom with 
7 



74 GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

yours; perhaps the community of peril, of common 
safety, or common wreck, gives a consequence to my 
share of the risque, which I could not be vain enough 
to give it, if it were not raised to it by that mutuality. 
But w^hy stoop to think at all of myself, when I know 
that you, gentlemen of the jury, when I know that our 
country itself are my clients on this day, and must 
abide the alternative of honor, or of infamy, as you 
shall decide. But I will not despond, I w^ill not dare 
to despond. I have every trust, and hope, and confi- 
dence in you. And to that hope I will add my most 
fervent prayer to the God of all truth and justice, that 
you may so decide, as to preserve to yourselves while 
you live, the most delightful of all recollections, that 
of acting justly, and to transmit to your children the 
most precious of all inheritances — the memory of your 
virtue. 



MR. CURRAN'S SPEECH, 

ON ALDERMAN HOWISON's ELECTION AS LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN, SUP- 
POSED TO BE DIRECTED AGAINST LORD CLARE ON THE BENCH. 

It may be given to a Hale, or a Hardwicke, to dis- 
cover and retract a mistake; the errors of such men 
are only specks that arise for a moment upon the sur- 
face of a splendid luminary; consumed by its heat, or 
irradiated by its light, they soon purge and disappear; 
but the perverseness of a mean and narrow intellect, 
is like the excrescences that grow upon a body 
naturally cold and dark: no fire to waste them, and no 
ray to enlighten, they assimilate and coalesce with 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 75 

those qualities so congenial to their nature, and acquire 
an incorrigible permanency in the union with kindred 
frost and kindred opacity. Nor indeed, my lords, 
except where the interest of millions can be effected 
by the folly or vice of an individual, need it be much 
regretted, that, to tilings not worthy of being made 
better, it hath not pleased Providence to afford the 
privilege of improvement. 



MR. CURRAN, 

I?f REPLY TO MR. FITZGIBEON, ATTORNEY GENERAL, WHO HAD 
ANSWERED WITH MUCH PERSONALITY, MR. CURRAN's SPEECH 
ON ATTACHMENTS, IN THE IRISH PARLIAMENT, FEB. 24, 1785. 

The attorney general, (Fitzgibbon,) in a speech of 
much personality, opposed Mr. Curran's motion. 

Mr. Curran in reply, thanked the right honorable 
gentleman for restoring him to his good humor, and 
for having, with great liberality and parliamentary de- 
cency, answered his arguments with personality! 
Some expressions could not heat him, when coming 
from persons of a certain distinction. He would not 
interrupt the right honorable gentleman in the fifth 
repetition of his speech. He would prevent his argu- 
ments, by telling him, he had not in one instance al- 
luded to Mr. Reilly. The right honorable gentleman 
said, he had declared the judges guilty; but he had said 
no such thing. He said, if any judge was to act in the 
manner he mentioned, it would be an aggravation of 
his guilt. The right honorable gentleman had said, 
that the house of commons had no right to investigate 
the conduct of judges; if so^ he would ask the learned 



76 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

Serjeant, why he sat in that chair? he would ask why 
the resolution had been just read from the journals? — 
The gentleman had called him a babbler; he could not 
think that was meant as a disgrace; because in another 
parliament, before he had the honor of a seat in that 
house, but when he was in the gallery, he had heard a 
young lawyer named Babbler. He did not recollect 
that there w^ere sponsors at the baptismal font, nor was 
there any occasion, as the infant had promised and 
vowed so many things in his own name. Indeed he 
found it difiicult to reply, for he was not accustomed to 
pronounce panegyric upon himself; he did not well 
know how to do it; but since he could not tell them 
what he was, he could tell them what he was not. He 
was not a man whose respect in person and character 
depended upon the importance of his office; he was 
not a young man who thrust himself into the fore- 
ground of a picture which ought to be occupied by a 
better figure; he was not a man who replied with in- 
vective when sinking under the weight of argument; 
he was not a man who denied the necessity of a parlia- 
mentary reform at the time he proved the expediency 
of it, by reviling his own constituents, the parish clerk, 
the sexton, and grave-digger; and if there was any man 
who could apply what he w^as not to himself, he left 
him to think of it in the committee, and to contem.^ 
p]a.te upon it when he went home.. 



CURRAN'S OPINION OF GRATTAN, 

FROM HI3 SPEECH ON COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE, AUG. 15, 1785. 

And there [Mr. Grattan] was exerting an eloquence 
more than human, inspiring-, forming, directing, ani- 
mating, to the great purposes of your salvation, &c. 



THE PENSION LIST. 

This polyglot of wealth, this museum of curiosi- 
ties, the pension list, embraces every link in the hu- 
man chain, every description of men, women and 
children, from the exalted excellence of a Hawke or 
a Rodney, to the debased situation of the lady who 
humbleth herself that she may be exalted. But the 
lessons it inculcates form its greatest perfection: — it 
teaches that sloth and vice may eat that bread which 
virtue and honesty may starve for after they have earned 
it. It teaches the idle and dissolute to look up for that 
support which they are too proud to stoop and earn. 
It directs the minds of men to an entire reliance on the 
ruling power of the state, who feeds the ravens of the 
royal aviary, that cry continually for food. It teaches 
them to imitate those saints on the pension list that 
are like lilies of the field — they toil not, neither do 
they spin, but they are arrayed like Solomon in his 
glory. In fine, it teaches a lesson which indeed they 
might have learned from Epictetus — that it is some- 
times good not to be over virtuous; it shows, that in 
7# 



78 GEMS OF IRISH BLOaUENCB, &C. 

proportion as our distresses increase, the munificence 
of the crown increases also — in proportion as our 
clothes are rent, the royal mantle is extended over us. 
But notwithstanding the pension list, like charity, 
covers a multitude of sins, give me leave to consider 
it as coming home to the members of this house — 
give me leave to say, that the crown in extending its 
charity, its liberality, its profusion, is laying a founda- 
tion for the independence of parliament; for hereafter, 
instead of orators or patriots accounting for their con- 
duct to such mean and unworthy persons as free-hold- 
ers, they will learn to despise them, and look to the 
first man in the state; and they will by so doing have 
this security for their independence, that while any 
man in the kingdom has a shilling, they will not want 
one. Suppose at any future period of time the bo- 
roughs of Ireland should decline from their present 
flourishing and prosperous state — suppose they should 
fall into the hands of men who w^ould wish to drive a 
profitable commerce, by having members of parliament 
to hire or let; in such a case a secretary would find 
great difficulty if the proprietors of members should 
enter into a combination to form a monopoly; to pre- 
vent which in time, the w^isest way is to purchase up 
the raw material, young members of parliament, just 
rough from the grass; and when they are a little bitted, 
and he has got a pretty stud, perhaps of seventy, he 
may laugh at the slave merchant: some of them he 
may teach to sound through the nose, like a barrel 
organ; some, in the course of a few months might be 
taught to cry hear! hear! some, chair! chair! upon 
occasion; though these latter might create a little con- 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 79 

fusion, if they were to forget whether they called 
inside or outside of those doors. Again, he might have 
sonie so trained that he need only pull a string, and up 
gets a repeating memher; and if they were so dull 
that they could neither speak nor make orations, (for 
they are different things) he might have them taught to 
dance pedibus ire in sententia. — This improvement 
might be extended; he might have them dressed in 
coats and shirts all of one colour, and of a Sunday he 
might march them to church two by two, to the great 
edification of the people and the honor of the christian 
religion; afterwards, like the ancient Spartans, or the 
fraternity at Kilmainham, they might dine all together 
in a large hall. Good heaven! what a sight to see 
them feeding in public upon public viands, and talking 
of public subjects for the benefit of the public. It is 
a pity they are not immortal; but t hope they will 
flourish as a corporation, and that pensioners will beget 
pensioners to the end of the chapter. 

This, he said, might be deemed an unusual language 
in that house, but he assured the right honorable secre- 
tary, he did not speak with any view of disturbing his 
personal feelings; he did not admire, nor would he imi- 
tate the cruelty of the Sicilian tyrant who amused 
himself with putting insects to the torture; he wa& 
therefore stating facts. 



THE VOLUNTEERS OF IRELAND, 

FROM MR. CURRAN's SPEECH IN DEFENCE OF A. H. ROWAN. 

That illustrious, and adored, and abused body of men 
stood forward and assumed the title, which, I trust, 
the ingratitude of their country will never blot from 
its history, "the volunteers of Ireland." 

CURRAN. 



UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION. 

I PUT it to your oaths; do you think that a blessing 
of that kind, that a victory obtained by justice over 
bigotry and oppression, should have a stigma cast upon 
it by an ignominious sentence upon men bold and 
honest enough to propose that measure? to propose the 
redeeming of religion from the abuses of the church, 
the reclaiming of three millions of men from bondage, 
and giving liberty to all who had a right to demand it; 
giving, I say, in the so much censured words of this 
paper, giving "universal emancipation!" I speak 
in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty 
commensurate wn'th, and inseparable from, British soil; 
which proclaims even to the stranger and the sojourner, 
the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that 
the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecra- 
ted by the genius of universal emancipation. No 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCB, &C. 81 

matter in what language his doom may have been pro- 
nounced; — no matter what complexion, incompatible 
with freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have 
burnt upon his brow; — no matter in what disastrous 
battle his liberty may have been cloven down; — no 
matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted 
upon the altar of slavery; the moment he touches the 
sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink to- 
gether in the dust; his soul walks abroad in her own 
majesty; his body swells beyond the measure of his 
chains, which burst from around him, and he stands re- 
deemed, regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irre- 
sistible genius of universal emancipation. 

[flere *Mr, Curran was interrupted by a sudden burst 
of applause from the court and hallj which was repeated 
for a considerable length of time: silence being at length 
restored^ he proceeded.^ 



CURRAN 



FROM THE DEFENCE OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN. 

The;re is a sort of aspiring and adventurous credulity, 
which disdains assenting to obvious truths, and de- 
lights in catching at the improbability of circum- 
stances, as its best ground of faith. To what other cause, 
gentlemen, can you ascribe that in the wise, the re- 
flecting, and the philosophic nation of Great Britain, a 
printer has been gravely found guilty of a libel, for 
publishing those resolutions to which the present min- 
ister of that kingdom had actually subscribed his name? 



82 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

To what other cause can you ascribe, what in my 
mind is still more astonishing, in such a country as 
Scotland — a nation cast in the happy medium between 
the spiritless acquiescence of submissive poverty, and 
the sturdy credulity of pampered wealth; cool and 
ardent; adventurous and persevering; winging her 
eagle flight against the blaze of every science, with 
an eye that never winks, and a wing that never tires; 
crowned as she is with the spoils of every art, and 
decked with the wreath of every muse, from the deep 
and scrutinizing researches of her Hume, to the sweet 
and simple, but not less sublime and pathetic morality 
of her Burns — how, from the bosom of a country like 
that, genius, and character, and talents, should be 
banished to a distant barbarous soil;"^ condemned to 
pine under the horrid communion of vulgar vice and 
base-born profligacy, for twice the period that ordi- 
nary calculation gives to the continuance of human life? 



CURRAN, 



CONCLUSION OF THE SPEECH, 

IN DEFENCE OF ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN, ESQ. 

When your sentence shall have sent him forth to 
that stage, which guilt alone can render infamous, let 
me tell you, he will not be like a little statue upon a 
mighty pedestal, diminishing by elevation; but he will 
gtand a striking and imposing object upon a monument, 
which, if it does not (and it cannot) record the atrocity 

♦Alluding to the sentence of transportation against Miner Palmer, 
Sec, in Scotland. 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 83 

of his crime, must record the atrocity of his con- 
viction. Upon this subject, therefore, credit me 
when 1 say, that I am still more anxious for you, 
than I can possibly be for him. I cannot but feel the 
peculiarity of your situation. Not the jury of his own 
choice, which the law of England allows, but which 
ours refuses; collected in that box by a person cer- 
tainly no friend to Mr. Rowan, certainly not very 
deeply interested in giving him a very impartial jury. 
Feeling this, as I am persuaded you do, you cannot 
be surprised, however you may be distressed, at the 
mournful presage, with which an anxious public is led 
to fear the worst from your possible determination. 
But I will not, for the justice and honor of our com- 
mon country, suffer my mind to be borne away by 
such melancholy anticipation. I will not relinquish the 
confidence that this day will be the period of his suf- 
ferings; and, however mercilessly he has been hitherto 
pursued, that your verdict will send him home to the 
arms of his family, and the wishes of his country. 
But if, which heaven forbid, it hath still been unfortu- 
nately determined, that because he has not bent to 
power and authority, because he would not bow down 
before the golden calf and worship it, he is to be bound 
and cast into the furnace; I do trust in God, that there 
is a redeeming spirit in the constitution, which will be 
seen to walk with the sufferer through the flames, and 
to preserve him unhurt by the conflagration. 

[C/pon the conclusion of this speech^ Mr, Curran 
was again^ for many minutes^ loudly applauded by the 
auditors; and upon leaving the courts teas drawn home 
by the populace^ who took the horses from his carriage.]^ 



CURRAN. 



O'BRIEN, 

FROM THE SPEECH IN DEFENCE OF PATRICK FINNE;RT"r. 



H0W5 then, does Mr. O'Brien's tale hang together? 
Look to its commencement. He walks along Thomas 
street, in the open day, (a street not the least populous 
in the city,) and is accosted by a man, who, without 
any preface, tells him, he'll be murdered before he 
goes half the street, unless he becomes a united Irish- 
man! Do you think this a probable story? Suppose 
any of you, gentlemen, be a united Irishman, or a free 
mason, or a friendly brother, and that you met me 
walking innocently along, just like Mr. O'Brien, and 
meaning no harm^ would you say, "Stop Mr. Curran, 
don't go further, you'll be murdered before you go half 
the street, if you do not become a united Irishman, a 
free mason, or a friendly brother." Did you ever hear 
so coaxing an invitation to felony as this? "Sweet 
Mr. James O'Brien! come in and save your precious 
life, come in and take an oath, or you'll be murdered 
before you go half the street! — Do, sweetest, dearest 
Mr. James O'Brien, come in and do not risk your valu- 
able existence." What a loss had he been to his king, 
whom he loves so marvellously! Well, what does 
poor Mr. O'Brien do? Poor, dear man, he stands pet- 
rified with the magnitude of his danger — all his mem- 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 85 

bers refuse their office — he can neither run from the 
danger, nor call out for assistance; his tongue cleaves 
to his mouth! and his feet incorporate with the paving 
stones — it is in vain that his expressive eye silently 
implores protection of the passenger; he yields at 
length, as greater men have done, and resignedly sub- 
mits to his fate: he then enters the house, and being 
led into a room, a parcel of men make faces at him: 
but mark the metamorphosis — well may it be said that 
^'miracles will never cease;'' — he who feared to resist 
in open air, and in the face of the public, becomes a 
bravOj when pent up in a room, and environed by sixteen 
men; and one is obliged to bar the door, while another 
swears him; which, after some resistance, is accord- 
ingly done, and poor Mr. O'Brien becomes a united 
Irishman, for no earthly purpose whatever, but merely 
to save his sweet life! But this is not all — the pill so 
bitter to the percipiency of his loyal palate, must be 
washed down; and lest he should throw it off his 
stomach, he is filled up to the neck with beef and 
w^hiskey. — What further did they do? 

Mr. O'Brien, thus persecuted, abused and terrified, 
would have gone and lodged his sorrows in the sym- 
pathetic bosom of the major; but to prevent him even 
this little solace, they made him drunk. The next 
evening they used him in the like barbarous manner, 
so that he was not only sworn against his will, but, 
poor man, he was made drunk against his inclination. 
Thus was he besieged with united beef steaks and 
whiskey, and against such potent assailants not even 
Mr. O'Brien could prevail. 
8 



CURRAN. 



O'BRIEN,— FROM SAME.. 

I HAVE heard of assassination by sword, by pistol, and 
by dagger, but here is a wretch who would dip the 
evangelists of God in blood. 

CURRAN. 



CONCLUSION OF THE SPEECH, IN DEFENCE OF MR. FINNEY. 

The present cause takes in the entire character of 
your country, which may suffer in the eyes of all 
Europe by your verdict. This is the first prosecution 
of the kind brought forward to view. — It is the great 
experiment of the informers of Ireland, to ascertain 
how far they can carry on a traffic in human blood! 
This cannibal informer, this demon, O'Brien, greedy 
after human gore, has fifteen other victims in reserve, 
if, from your verdict, he receives the unhappy man at 
the bar! Fifteen more of your fellow citizens are to 
be tried on his evidence! Be you then their saviours; 
let your verdict snatch them from his ravening maw, 
and interpose between yourselves and endless remorse! 
I know, gentlemen, I would but insuh you, if I were 
to apologize for detaining you thus long: if I have an 
apology to make to any person, it is to my client, for 
thus delaying his acquittal. Sweet is the recollection 
of having done justice, in that hour when the hand of 
death presses on the human heart! Sweet is the hope 
which it gives birth to! From you I demand that jus- 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 87 

tice for my client, your innocent and unfortunate 
fellow subject at the bar; and may you have for it a 
more lasting reward than the perishable crown we 
read of, which the ancients placed on the brow of him 
who saved in battle the life of a fellow citizen. 

If you should ever be assailed by the hand of the 
informer^ may you find an all-powerful refuge in the 
example which you shall set this day; earnestly do I 
pray that you may never experience what it is to count 
the tedious hours in captivity, pining in the damps and 
gloom of the dungeon, while the wicked one is going 
about at large, seeking whom he may devour. There 
is another than a human tribunal, where the best of us 
will have occasion to look back on the little good we 
have done. In that awful trial, oh! may your verdict 
this day assure your hopes, and give you strength and 
consolation in the presence of an adjudging god. 



CURRAN. 



CONDITION OF IRELAND, 

AND 

CHARACTER OF INFORMERS, 

FROM THE SPEECH IN DEFENCE OF MR. PETER FINNERTY, 
DECEMBER 22, 1797. 

Merciful God! what is the state of Ireland, and 
where shall you find the wretched inhabitant of this 
land? You may find him perhaps in gaol, the only 
place of security, 1 had almost said, of ordinary habi- 
tation; you may see him flying by the conflagration of 
his own dwelling; or you may find his bones bleaching 



88 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

on the green fields of his country; or he may be found 
tossing upon the surface of the ocean, and mingling his 
groans with those tempests, less savage than his per- 
secutors, that drift him to a returnless distance from 
his family and his home. And yet, with these facts 
ringing in the ears and staring in the face of i\ie prose- 
cutors, you are called upon to say, on your oaths, that 
these facts do not exist. You are called upon, in de- 
fiance of shame, of truth, of honor, to deny the suf- 
ferings under which you groan, and to flatter the per- 
secution that tramples you under foot. 

But the learned gentleman is further pleased to say, 
that the traverser has charged the government with the 
encouragement of informers. This, gentlemen, is 
_ another small fact that you are to deny at the hazard 
of your souls, and upon the solemnity of your oaths. 
You are upon your oaths to say to the sister country, 
that the government of Ireland uses no such abomi- 
nable instruments of destruction as informers. Let 
me ask you honestly, what do you feel, when in my 
hearing, when in the face of this audience, you are 
called upon to give a verdict that every riaan of us, and 
every man of you, know by the testimony of your own 
eyes to be utterly and absolutely false? I speak not 
now of the public proclamation for informers, with a 
promise of secrecy and of extravagant reward; I speak 
not of the fate of those horrid wretches who have 
been so often transferred from the table to the dock, 
and from the dock to the pillory; I speak of what 
your own eyes have seen day after day, during the 
course of this commission, from the box where you 
are now sitting; the number of horrid miscreants who 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENOE, &C. 89 

avowed upon their oaths that they had come from the 
very seat of government — from the castle, where they 
had been worked upon by the fear of death and the 
hopes of compensation, to give evidence against their 
fellows; that the mild and wholesome councils of this 
government are holden over these catacombs of living 
death, where the wretch that is buried a man, lies till 
his heart has time to fester and dissolve, and is then 
dug up a witness. 

Is this fancy, or is it fact? Have you not seen him, 
after his resurrection from that tomb, after having been 
dug out of the region of death and corruption, make 
his appearance upon the table, the living image of life 
and of death, and the supreme arbiter of both? Have 
you not marked when he entered, how the stormy 
wave of the multitude retired at his approach? Have 
you not marked how the human heart bowed to the su- 
premacy of his power, in the undissembled homage of 
deferential horror? How his glance, like the lightning 
of heaven, seemed to rive the body of the accused, 
and mark it for the grave, while his voice warned the 
devoted wretch of wo and death; a death which no 
innocence can escape, no art elude, no force resist, no 
antidote prevent; — there was an antidote — a juror's 
oath; but even that adamantine chain, that bound the 
integrity of man to the throne of eternal justice, is 
solved and melted in the breath that issues from the 
informer's mouth; conscience swings from her mooring, 
and the appalled and affrighted juror consults his own 
safety in the surrender of the victim: — 

Et quae sibi quisque timebat. — 

(Jnius in miseri exitium conversa tulere. 

8* 



eURRAN, 



FROM THE SPEECH BEFORE THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 

AGAINST THE ATTAINDER OF LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD, AND 
IN FAVOR OF LADY PAMELA FITZGERALD AND HER INFANT 
CHILDREN. 



One topic more, said he, you will permit me to add. 
Ev€ry act of the sort ought to have a practical moral- 
ity flowing from its principle: if loyalty and justice 
require that these infants should be deprived of bread, 
must it not be a violation of that principle to give them 
food or shelter.^ Must not every loyal and just man 
wish to see them, in the words of the famous Golden 
Bull, "always poor and necessitous, and for ever ac- 
companied by the infamy of their father, languishing 
in continued indigence, and finding their punishment 
in living, and their relief in dying." 

If the widowed mother should carry the orphan heir 
of her unfortunate husband, to the gate of any man 
who might feel himself touched with the sad vicissi- 
tudes of human affairs, who might feel a compas- 
sionate reverence for the noble blood that flowed in 
his veins, nobUr than the royalty that first ennobled it^ 
that, like a rich stream, rose till it ran, and hid its 
fountain. If, remembering the many noble qualities of 
his unfortunate father, his heart melted over the calami- 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCEj SlQ. 91 

ties of the child; if his heart swelled, if his eyes over- 
flowed, if his too precipitate hand was stretched out by 
his pity, or his gratitude to the poor excommunicated 
sufferers, how could he justify th^ rebel tear^ or the 
traitorous humanity? 

I shall trespass no longer upon the patience for which 
I am grateful; — one word only, and I have done. And 
that is, once more, earnestly and solemnly to conjure 
you to reflect, that the fact — I mean the fact of guilt 
or innocence, which must be the foundation of this 
bill,— is not now, after the death of the party, capable 
of being tried, consistently with the liberty of a free 
people, or the unalterable rules of eternal justice. 

And as to the forfeiture and the ignominy which it 
enacts, that only can be punishment which lights upon 
guilt; and that can be only vengeance which breaks^ 

upon INNOCENCE. 

eURRAN. 



FROM THE SPEECH, IN THE CASE OF HEVEY AGAINST SIKR, 

I CANNOT also but observe to you, continued Mr. 
Curran, that the real state of one country, is more 
forcibly impressed on the attention of another, by a 
verdict on such a subject as this, than it could be by 
any general description. When you endeavourto con- 
vey an idea of a great number of barbarians, prac- 
tising a great variety of cruelties upon an incalculable 
multitude of sufferers, nothing defined or specific finds 
its way to the heart, nor is any sentiment excited, save 



92 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

that of a general erratic unappropriated commiseration. 
If, for instance, you wished to convey to the mind of 
an English matron the horrors of that direful period, 
when, in defiance of the remonstrance of the ever to 
be lamented Abercromby, our poor people were sur- 
rendered to the licentious brutality of the soldiery, by 
the authority of the state, you would vainly endeavor 
to give her a general picture of lust, and rapine, and 
murder, and conflagration. By endeavoring to com- 
prehend every thing, you would convey nothing. 
When the father of poetry wishes to portray the move- 
ments of contending armies, and an embattled field, 
he exemplifies only, he does not describe; he does not 
venture to describe the perplexed and promiscuous 
conflicts of adverse hosts; but by the acts and fates of 
a few individuals he conveys a notion of the vicissi- 
tudes of the fight, and the fortunes of the day. So 
should your story to her keep clear of generalities; 
instead of exhibiting the picture of an entire province, 
select a single object; and even in that single object 
do not release the imagination of your hearer from its 
task, by giving more than an outline; take a cottage; 
place the aff'righted mother of her orphan daughters at 
the door, the paleness of death upon her face, and 
more than its agonies in her heart; her aching heart, 
her anxious ear, struggling through the mist of closing 
day, to catch the approaches of desolation and dis- 
honor. The ruffian gang arrives, the feast of plunder 
begins, the cup of madness kindles in its circulation. 
The wandering glances of the ravisher become con- 
centrated upon the shrinking and devoted victim. You 
need not dilate, you need not expatiate; the unpolluted 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 93 

mother, to whom you tell the'story of horror, beseeches 
you not to proceed; she presses her child to her heart, 
she drowns it in her tears, her fancy catches more 
than an angel's tongue could describe; at a single view 
she takes in the whole miserable succession of force, 
of profanation, of despair, of death. — So it is in the 
question before us. If any man shall hear of this day's 
transaction, he cannot be so foolish as to suppose that 
we have been confined to a single character like those 
now brought before you. No, gentlemen; far from it; 
he will have too much common sense, not to know, 
that outrages like this are never solitary; that where 
the public calamity generates imps like those, their 
number is as the sands of the sea, and their fury as 
insatiable as its waves. 



CURRAN. 



RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY, 

FROM THE SPEECH IN DEFENCE OF EVEN KIRWAN. 

I NO longer behold the ravages of that odious bigotry 
by which we were deformed, and degraded, and dis- 
graced — a bigotry against which no honest man should 
ever miss an opportunity of putting his countrymen, of 
all sects and of all descriptions, upon their guard: it is 
the accursed and promiscuous progeny of servile hy- 
pocrisy, of remorseless lust of power — of insatiate 
thirst of gain — laboring for the destruction of man, 
under the specious pretences of religion— her banner 
stolen from the altar of God, and her allies congre- 
gated from the abysses of heW, she acts by votaries to 



94 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

be restrained by no compunctions of humanity, for 
they are dead to mercy; to be reclaimed by no voice 
of reason, for refutation is the bread on which their 
folly feeds: they are outlawed alike from their species 
and their Creator; the object of their crime is social 
life, and the wages of their sin is social death; for 
though it may happen that a guilty individual should 
escape from the law that he has broken, it cannot be 
so with nations: their guilt is too extensive and un- 
wieldy for such escape: they may rest assured that 
Providence has, in the natural connexion between 
causes and their effects, established a system of retri- 
butive justice, by which the crimes of nations are 
sooner or later avenged by their own inevitable conse- 
quences. But that hateful bigotry — that baneful dis- 
cord, which fired the heart of man, and steeled it 
against his brother, has fled at last, and I trust for ever. 



CURRAN. 



CHARACTER OF LORD AVONMORE, 

TROM THE SPEECH IN THE CAUSE OF THE KING AGAINST 

MR. JUSTICE JOHNSON. 

I AM not ignorant, my lords, that this extraordinary 
construction has received the sanction of another court, 
nor of the surprise and dismay with which it smote 
upon the general heart of the bar. I am aware that I 
may have the mortification of being told, in another 
country, of that unhappy decision; and I foresee in 
what confusion I shall hang down my head when I am 
told it. But I cherish too the consolatory hope, that I 



&c. 95 

shall be able to tell them that I had an old and learned 
friend, whom I would put above all the sweepings of 
their hall, who was of a different opinion; who had de- 
rived his ideas of civil liberty from the purest foun- 
tains of Athens and of Rome; who had fed the youthful 
vigor of his studious mind with the theoretic knowledge 
of their wisest philosophers and statesmen; and who 
had refined the theory into the quick and exquisite 
sensibility of moral instinct, by contemplating the 
practice of their most illustrious examples; by dwel- 
ling on the sweet souled piety of Cimon; on the anti- 
cipated Christianity of Socrates, on the gallant and 
pathetic patriotism of Epaminondas; on that pure aus- 
terity of Fabricius, w^hom to move from his integrity, 
would have been more difficult than to have pushed 
the sun from his course. I would add, that if he had 
seemed to hesitate, it was but for a moment; that his 
hesitation w^as like the passing cloud that floats across 
the morning sun, and hides it from the view, and does 
so for a moment hide it, by involving the spectator 
without even approaching the face of the luminary: 
and this soothing hope I draw from the dearest and 
tenderest recollections of my life, from the remem- 
brance of those Attic nights, and those refections of 
the gods which we have spent with those admired and 
respected and beloved companions who have gone 
before us, — over w^hose ashes the most precious tears 
of Ireland have been shed: yes, my good lord, I see 
you do not forget them; I see their sacred forms pas- 
sing in sad review before your memory; I see your 
pained and softened fancy recalling those happy meet- 
ings when the innocent enjoyment of social mirth 



96 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCB, &C. 

expanded into the nobler warmth of social virtue; and 
tiie horizon of the board became enlarged into the 
horizon of man; — when the swelling heart conceived 
and communicated the pure and generous purpose, — 
when my slenderer and younger taper imbibed its bor- 
rowed light from the more matured and redundant 
fountain of yours. Yes, my lord, w^e can remember 
those nights without any other regret than that they 
can never more return, for 

««We spent them not in toys, or lust, or wine; 

But search of deep philosophy, 

W^it, eloquence and poesy, 
Arts which I lov'd; for they, my friend, were thine." 



PHILLIPS. 



A SPEECH, 

DELIVERED AT A DINNER GIVEN ON DINAS ISLAND, IN THK 
LAKE OF KILLARNEY, ON MR. PHILLIPS* HEALTH BEING GIVEN, 
TOGETHER WITH THAT OF MR. PAYNE, A YOUNG AMERICAN. 

It is not with the vain hope of returning by words the 
kindnesses which have been literally showered on me 
during the short period of our acquaintance, that I now 
interrupt, for a moment, the flow of your festivity. 
Indeed, it is not necessary; an Irishman needs no re- 
quital for his hospitality; its generous impulse is the 
instinct of his nature, and the very consciousness of 
the act carries its recompense along with it. But, sir, 
there are sensations excited by an allusion in your 
toast, under the influence of which, silence would be 
impossible. To be associated with Mr. Payne must 
be, to any one who regards private virtues and per- 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C 97 

sonal accomplishments, a source of peculiar pride; and 
that feeling is not a little enhanced in me by a recollec- 
tion of the country to which we are indebted for his 
qualifications. Indeed, the mention of America has 
never failed to fill me with the most lively emotions. 
In my earliest infancy, that tender season when im- 
pressions, at once the most permanent and the most 
powerful, are likely to be excited, the story of her 
then recent struggle raised a throb in every heart that 
loved liberty, and wrung a reluctant tribute even from 
discomfited oppression. I saw her spurning alike the 
luxuries that w^ould enervate, and the legions that 
would intimidate; dashing from her lips the poisoned 
cup of European servitude, and, through all the vicis- 
situdes of her protracted conflict, displaying a mag- 
nanimity that defied misfortune, and a moderation that 
gave new grace to victory. It was the first vision of 
my childhood; it will descend with me to the grave. 
But if as a man, I venerate the mention of America, 
what must be my feelings towards her as an Irishman. 
Never, oh never, while memory remains, can Ireland 
forget the home of her emigrant, and the asylum of her 
exile. No matter whether their sorrows sprung from 
the errors of enthusiasm, or the realities of suflFering — 
from fancy or infliction; that must be reserved for the 
scrutiny of those whom the lapse of time shall acquit 
of partiality. It is for the men of other ages to inves- 
tigate and record it: but surely it is for the men of 
every age to hail the hospitality that received the 
shelterless, and love the feeling that befriended the un- 
fortunate. Search creation round, where can you find 
a country that presents so sublime a view, so interest- 
9 



98 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 



ing an anticipation? What noble institutions! What 
a comprehensive policy! What a wise equalization of 
every political advantage! The oppressed of all coun- 
tries, the martyrs of every creed, the innocent victim 
of despotic arrogance or superstitious phrenzy, may 
there find refuge; his industry encouraged, his piety 
respected, his ambition animated; with no restraint 
but those law^s which are the same to all, and no dis- 
tinction but that which his merit may originate. Who 
can deny that the existence of such a country presents 
a subject for human congratulation! Who can deny, 
that its gigantic advancement offers a field for the most 
rational conjecture! At the end of the very next cen- 
tury, if she proceeds as she seems to promise, what a 
wondrous spectacle may she not exhibit! Who shall 
say for what purpose a mysterious Providence may 
not have designed her! Who shall say that when in 
its follies or its crimes, the old world may have inter- 
red all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its 
civilization, human nature may not find its destined 
renovation in the new! For myself, I have no doubt 
of it. I have not the least doubt that when our temples 
and our trophies shall have mouldered into dust — when 
the glories of our name shall be but the legend of tra- 
dition, and the light of our achievements only live in 
song; philosophy will rise again in the sky of her 
Franklin, and glory rekindled at the urn of her Wash- 
ington. Is this the vision of romantic fancy? Is it 
even improbable? Is it half so improbable as the 
events, which, for the last twenty years have rolled 
like successive tides over the surface of the European 
world, each erasing the impressions that preceded it? 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 99 

Thousands upon thousands. Sir, I know there are, 
who will consider this supposition as wild and whim- 
sical; but they have dwelt with little reflection upon 
the records of the past. They have but ill observed 
the never-ceasing progress of national rise and national 
ruin. They form their judgment on the deceitful sta- 
bility of the present hour, never considering the in- 
numerable monarchies and republics, in former days, 
apparently as permanent, their very existence become 
now the subjects of speculation — I had almost said of 
scepticism. I appeal to History! Tell me, thou 
reverend chronicler of the grave, can all the illusions 
of ambition realized, can all the wealth of a universal 
commerce, can all the achievements of successful hero- 
ism, or all the establishments of this worW^s wisdom, 
secure to empire the permanency of its possessions? 
Alas, Troy thought so once; yet the land of Priam 
lives only in song! Thebes thought so once, yet her 
hundred gates have crumbled, and her very tombs are 
but as the dust they were vainly intended to commem- 
orate! So thought Palmyra — where is she? So 
thought Persepolis, and now — 

"Yon waste, where roaming lions howl, 
Yon aisle, where moans the grey-eyed owl, 
Shows the proud Persian's great abode. 
Where sceptered once, an earthly god, 
His power-clad arm controlled each happier clime, 
" Where sports the warbling muse, and fancy soars sublime." 

So thought the countries of Demosthenes and the 
Spartan, yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, 
and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless, and 
enervate Ottoman! In his hurried march, Time has 
but looked at their imagined immortality, and all its 



100 GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

vanities, from the palace to the tomb, have, with their 
ruins, erased the very impression of his footsteps! The 
days of their glory are as if they had never been; and 
the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected in 
the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their com- 
merce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their 
philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the in- 
spiration of their bards! Who shall say, then, con- 
templating the past, that England, proud and potent as 
she appears, may not one day be what Athens is, and 
the young America yet soar to be what Athens was! 
Who shall say, when the European column shall have 
mouldered, and the night of barbarism obscured its 
very ruins, that that mighty continent may not emerge 
from the horizon, to rule, for its time, sovereign of the 
ascendant. 

Such, sir, is the natural progress of human opera- 
tions, and such the unsubstantial mockery of human 
pride. But I should, perhaps, apologise for this di- 
gression. The tombs are, at best, a sad, although an 
instructive subject. At all events, they are ill suited 
to such an hour as this. I shall endeavor to atone for 
it, by turning to a theme which tombs cannot inurn, or 
revolution alter. It is the custom of your board, and 
a noble one it is, to deck the cup of the gay with the 
garland of the great; and surely, even in the eyes of 
its deity, his grape is not the less lovely when glowing 
beneath the foliage of the palm tree and the myrtle. 
Allow me to add one flower to the chaplet, which, 
though it sprang in America, is not exotic. Virtue 
planted it, and it is naturalized every where. I see 
you anticipate me — I see you concur with me, that it 
matters very little what immediate spot may be the 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 101 

birth place of such a man as Washington. No 
people can claim, no country can appropriate him; the 
boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is 
eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was 
the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, 
I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. 
If the heavens thundered and the earth rocked, yet, 
when the storm passed, how pure was the climate that 
it cleared; how bright in the brow of the firmament 
was the planet which it revealed to us! In the pro- 
duction of Washington, it does really appear as if 
nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and 
that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so 
many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. 
Individual instances no doubt there were; splendid 
exemplifications of some single qualification. Caesar 
was merciful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was 
patient; but it was reserved for Washington to blend 
them all in one, and like the lovely chef d?(zuvre of the 
Grecian artist, to exhibit in one glow of associated 
beauty, the pride of every model, and the perfection of 
every master. As a General, he marshalled the peasant 
into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence 
of experience; as a statesman, he enlarged the policy 
of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of 
general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his 
views, and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the 
soldier and the statesman he almost added the charac- 
ter of the sage; a conqueror, he was untainted with 
the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from 
any stain of treason; for aggression commenced the 
contest, and his country called him to the command. 
9* 



102 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, vic- 
tory returned it. If he had paused here, history niight 
have doubted what station to assign him, w^iether at 
the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or 
her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his 
career, and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Wash- 
ington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned 
its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic 
life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said 
to have created.^ 

"How shall we rank thee upon glory's page, 
Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage; 
All thou hast been leflects less fame on thee, 
Far less than all thou hast forborne to be!" 

Such, Sir, is the testimony of one not to be accused 
of partiality in his estimate of America. Happy, proud 
America! the lightnings of heaven yielded to your 
philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce 
your patriotism! 

I have the honor, sir, of proposing to you a toast. 
The immortal memory of George Washington. 



FROM 

MR. PHILLIPS' SPEECH AT SLIGO. 

Curran, who, when thrones were crumbled and dy- 
nasties forgotten, might stand the landmark of his 
country's genius, rearing himself amid regal ruins and 
national dissolution, a mental pyramid in the solitude 
of time, beneath whose shade things might moulder, 
and round whose summit eternity must play. 



FROM 



MR. PHILLIPS' SPEECH AT CORK. 



Has it ever glanced across their christian zeal, if the 
story of our country should have casually reached the 
valleys of Hindostan, w^ith w^hat an argument they are 
furnishing the heathen world against their sacred mis- 
sionary? In what terms could the christian ecclesias- 
tic answer the Eastern Bramin, when he replied to his 
exhortations in language such as this? "Father, we 
have heard your doctrine; it is splendid in theory, 
specious in promise, sublime in prospect; like the 
world to which it leads, it is rich in the miracles of 
light. But, Father, we have heard that there are times 
when its rays vanish and leave your sphere in darkness, 
or when j^our only lustre arises from meteors of fire, 
and moons of blood; we have heard of the verdant 
island which the Great Spirit has raised in the bosom 
of the waters with such a bloom of beauty, that the 
very wave she has usurped, worships the loveliness of 
her intrusion. The sovereign of our forests is not 
more generous in his anger than her sons; the snow- 
flake, ere it falls on the mountain, is not purer than her 
daughters; little inland seas reflect the splendors of her 
landscape, and her valleys smile at the story of the ser- 
pent! Father, is it true, that this isle of the sun, this 
people of the morning, find the fury of the ocean in 
your creed, and more than the venom of the viper in 



*104 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

your policy? Is it true, that for six hundred years her 
peasant has not tasted peace, nor her piety rested from 
persecution? Oh, Brama! defend us from the God of 
the christian! Father, father, return to your brethren, 
retrace the waters; we may live in ignorance, but we 
live in love; and we will not taste the tree that gives us 
evil when it gives us wisdom. The heart is our guide, 
nature is our gospel; in the imitation of our fathers we 
found our hope; and, if we err, on the virtue of our mo- 
tives we rely for our redemption." How would the 
missionaries of the mitre answer him? How will they 
answer that insulted being of whose creed their conduct 
carries the refutation? 



BIGOTRY, 

FROM THE SPEECH OF MR. PHILLIPS AT DUBLIN. 

Bi-gotry! She has no head, and cannot think; she has 
no heart, and cannot feel-^ when she moves, it is in 
wrath; when she pauses, it is amid ruin; her prayers 
are curses, her communion is death, her vengeance is 
eternity, her decalogue is written in the blood of her 
victims; and if she stoops for a moment from her in- 
fernal flight, it is upon some kindred rock to whet her 
vulture fang for keener rapine, and replume her wing 
for a more sanguinary desolation! 1 appeal from this 
infernal, grave-stalled fury; I appeal to the good sense, 
to the policy, to the gratitude of England; and I make 
my appeal peculiarly at this moment, when all the 
illustrious potentates of Europe are assembled together 
in the British capital, to hold the great festival of uni- 
versal peace and universal emancipation. 



LIBERTY OF THE PRESS, 

FROM THE SPEECH IN THE CASE OF o'mULLEN AGAINST 

mc'korkill. 



There is, however, one subject connected with this 
trial, public in its nature, and universal in its interest, 
which imperiously calls for an exemplary verdict; I 
mean the liberty of the press — a theme which I ap- 
proach with mingled sensations of awe, and agony, 
and admiration. Considering all that we too fa- 
tally have seen — all that, perhaps, too fearfully we 
may have cause to apprehend, I feel myself cling to 
that residuary safeguard, with an atfection no tempta- 
tions can seduce, with a suspicion no anodyne can lull, 
with a fortitude that peril but infuriates. In the direful 
retrospect of experimental despotism, and the. hideous 
prospect of its possible re-animation, I clasp it with the 
desperation of a widowed female, who, in the deso- 
lation of her house, and the destruction of her house^ 
hold, hurries the last of her offspring through the 
flames, at once the relic of her joy, the depository of 
her wealth, and the remembrancer of her happiness. 
It is the duty of us all to guard strictly this inestimable 
privilege — a privilege which can never be destroyed, 
save by the licentiousness of those who wilfully abuse 
it ♦/Vo, it is not in the arrogance of power; no^ it is 
fiot in the artifices of law; no^ it is not in the fatuity of 
princes; no^ it is not in the venality of parliaments to 
Qvush this mighty y this majestic privilege; reviledy it will 



106 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

remonstrate; murderedj it will revive; buried^ it will re- 
ascend; the very attempt at its oppression loill prove the 
truth of its immortality^ and the atom that presumed to 
spurn^ will fade away before the trumpet of its retribu- 
tion! Man holds it on the saine principle that he does 
his soul: the powers of this world cannot prevail 
against it; it can only perish through its own depravity. 



SEDUCTION, 

FROM THE SPEECH IN THE CASE OF BROWNE AGAINST BLAKE. 

The hour of adversity is woman's hour — in the full 
blaze of fortune's rich meridian, her modest beam retires 
from vulgar notice; but when the clouds of wo collect 
around us, and shades and darkness dim the w^anderer's 
path, that chaste and lovely light shines forth to cheer 
him, an emblem and an emanation of the heavens! — It 
was then her love, her value, and her power was visible. 
No, it is not for the cheerfulness with which she bore 
the change I prize her — it is not that without a sigh 
she surrendered all the baubles of prosperity — ^but 
that she pillowed her poor husband's heart, welcomed 
adversity to make him happy, held up her little children 
as the wealth that no adversity could take away; and 
when she found his spirit broken and his soul dejected, 
with a more than masculine understanding, retrieved, 
in some degree his desperate fortunes, and saved the 
little wreck that solaced their retirement. What was 
such a woman worth, I ask you.'^ If you can stoop to 
estimate by dross the worth of such a creature, give 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOatJENCE, &G. 107 

me even a notary's calculation, and tell me then what 
she was worth to him to whom she had consecrated 
the bloom of her youth, the charm of her innocence, 
the splendor of her beauty, the wealth of her tender- 
ness, the power of her genius, the treasure of her 
fidelity? She, the mother of his children, the pulse 
of his heart, the joy of his prosperity, the solace of 
his misfortunes — what was she worth to him? Fallen 
as she is, you may still estimate her; you may see her 
value, even in her ruin. The gem is sullied, the dia- 
mond is shivered; but even in its dust you may see the 
magnificence of its material. After this, they retired 
to Rockville, their seat in the county of Galway, 
where they resided in the most domestic manner, on 
the remnant of their once splendid establishment. The 
butterflies, that in their noontide fluttered round them, 
vanished at the first breath of their adversity; but one 
early friend still remained faithful and affectionate, and 
that was the defendant. Mr. Blake is a young gentle- 
man of about eight and twenty; of splendid fortune, 
polished in his manners, interesting in his appearance, 
with many qualities to attach a friend, and every quality 
to fascinate a female. Most willingly do I pay the 
tribute which nature claims for him; most bitterly do 
I lament that he has been so ungrateful to so prodigal 
a benefactress. Th€ more Mr. Browne's fortunes ac- 
cumulated, the more disinterestedly attached did Mr. 
Blake appear to him. He shared with him his purse, 
he assisted him with his counsel: in an affair of honor 
he placed his life and character in his hands — he intro- 
duced his innocent sister, just arrived from an English 
nunnery, into the family of his friend — he encouraged 



108 GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

every reciprocity of intercourse between the females; 
and, to crown all, that no possible suspicion might 
attach to him, he seldom travelled without his domestic 
chaplain! Now, if it shall appear that all this was 
only a screen for his adultery — that he took advantage 
of his fiiend's misfortune to seduce the wife of his 
bosom — that he affected confidence only to betray it — 
that he perfected the wretchedness he pretended to 
console, and that in the midst of poverty he has left 
his victim, friendless, hopeless, companionless; a hus- 
band without a wife, and a father without a child. 
Gracious God! is it not enough to turn Mercy herself 
into an executioner! You convict for murder — here is 
the hand that mui'dered innocence! You convict for 
treason — here is the vilest disloyalty to friendship! 
You convict for robbery— here is one who plundered 
virtue of her dearest pearl, and dissolved it — even in 
the bowl that hospitality held out to him! They pre- 
tend that he is innocent! Oh eti'rontery, the most un- 
blushing! Oh vilest insult, added to the deadliest 
injury! Oh base, detestable, and damnable hypocrisy! 
Of the final testimony it is true enough their cunning 
has deprived us; but under Providence, I shall pour 
upon this baseness such a flood of light, that I will 
defy, not the most honorable man merely, but the most 
charitable sceptic, to touch the Holy Evangelists and 
say, by their sanctity, it has not been committed. 
Attend upon me, now, gentlemen, step by step, and 
with me rejoice, that, no matter how cautious may be 
the conspiracies of guilt, there is a power above to 
confound and to discover them. 



PHILLIPS. 

IRISH VIRTUE, 

FROM THE SPEECH IN THE CASE OF BROWN AGAINST BLAKE. 

Against the sneer of the foe, and the scepticism of the 
foreigner, I will still point to the domestic virtues, that 
no perfidy could barter, and no bribery can purchase, 
that with a Roman usage, at once embellish and con- 
secrate households, giving to the society of the hearth 
all the purity of the altar; that lingering alike in the 
palace and the cottage, are still to be found scattered 
over this land; the relic of what she was; the source 
perhaps of what she may be; the lone, the stately, and 
magnificent memorials, that rearing their majesty amid 
surrounding ruins serve at once as the land-marks of 
the departed glory, and the models by which the future 
may be erected. ^ 

PHILLIPS. 



THE BIBLE, 

FROM THE SPEECH AT LONDON. 

In despite of all their scoff, and scorn, and menacing, I 
say of the sacred volume they would obliterate, it is a 
book of facts, as well authenticated as any heathen his- 
tory — a book of miracles, incontestibly avouched — a 
book of prophecy, confirmed by past as well as present 
fulfilment — a book of poetry, pure and natural, and 
elevated even to inspiration — a book of morals, such as 
human wisdom never framed for the perfection of human 
happiness. My lord, I will abide by the precepts, 
admire the beauty, revere the mysteries, and, as far as 
in me lies, practise the mandates of this sacred volume; 
10 



110 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

and should the ridicule of earth, and the blasphemy of 
hell assail me., I shall console myself by the contem- 
plation of those blessed spirits, who, in the same holy 
cause have toiled, and shone, and suffered. In the 
''goodly fellowship of the saints'' — in the "noble army 
of the martyrs" — in the society of the great, and good, 
and wise of every nation, if my sinfulness be not 
cleansed, and my darkness illuminated, at least my pre- 
tentionless submission may be excused. If I err with 
the luminaries I have chosen for my guides, I confess 
myself captivated by the loveliness of their aberrations. 
If they err, it is in a heavenly region — if they wander, 
it is in the fields of light — if they aspire, it is at all 
events a glorious daring; and rather than sink with in- 
fidelity into the dust, I am content to cheat myself with 
their vision of eternity. It may indeed be nothing but 
delusion, but then I err with the disciples of philosophy 
and of virtue — with men who have drunk deep at the 
fountain of human knowledge, but who dissolved not 
the pearl of their salvation in the draught. I err with 
Bacon, the great Bacon — the great confidant of nature, 
fraught with all the learning of the past, and almost 
prescient of the future; yet too wise not to know his 
weakness, and too philosophic not to feel his ignorance . 
I err with Milton, rising on an angel's wing to heaven, 
and like the bird of morn, soaring out of light, amid 
the music of his grateful piety. I err with Locke, 
whose pure philosophy only taught him to adore its 
source, whose warm love of genuine liberty was never 
chilled into rebellion with its author. I err with New- 
ton, whose star-like spirit shot athwart the darkness 
of the sphere, too soon to re-ascend to the home of his 
nativity. 



MR. GRATTAN'S SPEECH, 

ON THE DECLARATION OF RIGHT, 

APRIL 16s 1782. 

I AM now to address a free people; ages have passed 
away, and this is the first moment in which you could 
be distinguished by that appellation. 

I have spoken on the subject of your liberty so often, 
that I have nothing to add, and have only to admire by 
what heaven directed motion you have proceeded until 
the whole faculty of the nation is braced up to the act 
of her own deliverance. 

I found Ireland on her knees: I w^atched over her 
with an eternal solicitude: I have traced her progress 
from injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit 
of Swifl! Spirit of Molyneaux! Your genius has pre- 
vailed! Ireland is now a nation! and in that new cha- 
racter I hail her! and bowing to her august presence, I 
say, est perpetual 

She is no longer a wretched colony, returning 
thanks to her governor for his rapine, and to her king 
for his oppression; nor is she now a squabbling, fretful 
sectary, perplexing her little wits, and firing her furi- 
ous statutes with bigotry, sophistry, disabilities and 
death, to transmit to posterity insignificance and war. 

Took to the rest of Europe, and contemplate yourself 



112 GEM8 OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

and be satisfied. Holland lives on the memory of past 
achievement; Sweden has lost her liberty; England 
has sullied her great name by an attempt to enslave 
her colonies. You are the only people — you, of the 
nations of Europe, are now the only people who excite 
admiration, and, in your present conduct you not only 
exceed the present generation, but now equal the past. 
I am not afraid to turn back and look antiquity into the 
face: the revolution — that great event, whether you 
call it ancient or modern I know not, was tarnished 
wnth bigotry; the great deliverer (for such I must ever 
call the prince of Nassau,) was blemished with op- 
pression; he assented to, he was forced to assent to, 
acts which deprived the Catholics of religious, and 
all the Irish of civil and commercial rights, though the 
Irish were the only subjects in these Islands, who had 
fought in his defence. But you have sought liberty on 
her own principle: see the Presbyterians of Bangor 
petition for the freedom of the Catholics of Munster. 
You, with difficulties innumerable, with dangers not a 
few, have done what your ancestors wished, but could 
not accomplish; and what your posterity may preserve, 
but will never equal. You have moulded the jarring 
elements of your country into a nation: you have rival- 
led those great and ancient commonw^ealths, whom you 
w^ere taught to admire, and among them you are now 
to be recorded. In this proceeding you had not the 
advantages which were common to other great coun- 
tries: no monuments, no trophies, none of those out- 
ward and visible signs of greatness, such as inspire 
mankind, and connect the ambition of the age which is 
coming on with the example of that going oflF, and 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 113 

forms the descent and concatenation of glory: no! you 
have not had any great act recorded among all your 
misfortunes, nor have you one public tomb at which to 
assemble the crowd, and speak to the living the lan- 
guage of integritj^ and freedom. 

Your historians did not supply the want of monu- 
ments: on the contrary, these narrators of your mis- 
fortunes, who should have felt for your wrong?, 
and have punished your oppressors with natural 
scourges, — with the moral indignatioji of history com- 
promised with public villainy and trembled; they ex- 
cited your violence, they suppressed your provocation, 
and wrote in the chain which entrammelled their 
country. I come to break that chain, and I congratu- 
late my country, who, without any of the advantages 
I speak of, going forth as it were with nothing but a 
stone and a sling, and what oppression could not take 
away, the favor of heaven, accomplished her own re- 
demption and left you nothing to add, and every thing 
to admire. 

You want no trophy now; the records of parliament 
are the evidence of your glory: I beg to observe that 
the deliverance of Ireland has proceeded from her own 
right hand: I rejoice at it, forbad the great requisition 
for your freedom, proceeded from the bounty of 
England, that great work would have been defective 
both in renown and in security: it was necessary that 
the soul of the country should have been exalted by 
the act of her own redemption, and that England 
should withdraw her claim by operation of treaty, and 
not of mere grace and condescension; a gratuitous act 
of parliament, however express, would have been 
10* 



114 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

revocable, but the repeal of her claim under operation 
af treaty is not; in that case the legislature is put in 
covenant, and bound by the laws of nations, the only 
law that can legally bind parliament: never did this 
country stand so high; England and Ireland treat 
ex eequo. Ireland transmits to the King her claim of 
right, and requires of the parliament of England the 
repeal of her claim of power, which repeal the 
English parliament is to make under the force of a 
treaty, which depends on the law of nations — a law 
which cannot be repealed by the parliament of Eng- 
land. 

I rejoice that the people are a party to this treaty, 
because they are bound to preserve it. There is not 
a man of forty shillings freehold who is not associated 
in this our claim of right, and bound to die in its de- 
fence* cities, counties, and associations, Protestants 
and Catholics; it seems as if the people had joined in 
one great national sacrament; a flame has descended 
from heaven on the intellect of Ireland, plays round 
her head, and encompasses her understanding with a 
consecrated glory. 

There are some who think, and a few who declare, 
that the associations to which I refer are illegal: come 
then, let us try the charge and state the grievance— 
and first I ask what were the grievances? An army 
imposed on us by another country, that army rendered 
perpetual; the privy council of both countries made a 
part of our legislature; our legislature deprived of its 
originating and piopounding power; another country 
exercising over us supreme legislative power; that 
country disposing of our property by its judgments^ 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 115 

and prohibiting our trade by its statutes; these were 
not grievances, but spoliations, which left you nothing. 
When you contended against them you contended for 
the whole of your condition: when the minister asked, 
by what right? We refer him to our Maker. We 
sought our privileges by the right which we have to 
defend our property from a robber, our life against a 
murderer, our country against an invader, whether 
coming from civil or military force — a foreign army 
or a foreign legislature. This is a case, which wants 
no precedent; the revolution wanted no precedent; for 
su€h things arrive to reform a course of bad precedent, 
and instead of being founded on precedent become 
such: the gazing world, whom they come to save, 
begins by doubt and concludes by worship. Let other 
nations be deceived by the sophistry of courts. Ireland 
has studied politics in the lair of oppression, and, 
taught by suffering, comprehends the rights of sub- 
jects and the duty of kings. Let other nations imagine 
that subjects are made for the monarch, but we con- 
ceive that kings and parliaments, like kings, are made 
for the subject. 

The house of commons^ honorable and right honor- 
able as it may be; the lords, noble and illustrious, as 
we pronounce them, are not original but derivative. 
Session after session, they move their periodical orbit 
about the source of their being, the nation; even the 
king's majesty must fulfil his due and tributary course 
round that great luminary; and created, by its beam, 
and upheld by its attraction, must incline to that ligh?t 
or go out of the system,. 



116 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

Ministers, we mean the ministers who have gone 
out; (I rely on the good intentions of the present,) 
former ministers, 1 say, have put questions to us: we 
beg to put questions to them. They desire to know, 
by what authority this nation has acted? This nation 
desires to know, by what authority they have acted? 
By what authority did government enforce the articles 
of war? By what authority does government estab- 
lish the post office? By what authority are our mer- 
chants bound by the charter of the East India com- 
pany? By what authority has Ireland for near one 
hundred years been deprived of her export trade? By 
what authority are her peers deprived of their judica- 
ture? By what authority has that judicature been 
transferred to the peers of Great Britain, and our pro- 
perty, in its last resort referred to the decision of a 
non-resident — unauthorized — and unconstitutional tri- 
bunal? 

Will the ministers say it was the authority of the 
British parliament? On what ground, then, do they 
place the question between the government on one 
side, and the volunteer on the other? According to 
their own statement, the government has been occu- 
pied in superseding the law-giver of the country; and 
the volunteers are here to restore him. The govern- 
ment has contended for the usurpation, and the people 
for the laws. His majesty's late government imagined 
that they had quelled the country when they had 
bought the newspapers; and they represented us as 
wild men, and our cause as visionary; and they pen- 
sioned a set of wretches to abuse both; but we took 
little account of them, or of their proceedings, and we 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 117 

waited, and we watched, and we moved, as it were, 
on our native hills, with the minor remains of our par- 
liamentary army, until that minority became Ireland. 
Let those ministers now go home and congratulate the 
king on the redemption of his people. Did you ima- 
gine that those little bodies, whom, three years ago, you 
beheld, in awkward squads, parading in the streets, 
should now have arrived to such distinction and effect? 
What was the cause? For it was not the sword of 
the volunteer, nor his muster, nor his spirit, nor his 
promptitude to put down accidental disturbance, or 
public disorder, nor his own unblamed and distin- 
guished deportment. This was much; but there was 
more than this; the upper orders, the property, and 
the abilities of the country, formed with the volun- 
teer; and the volunteer had sense enough to obey them. 
This united the Protestant with the Catholic, and the 
landed proprietor with the people. There was still 
more than this; there was a continence which confined 
the corps to limited and legitimate objects; there was 
a principle which has saved the corps from adultery 
with French politics; there was a good taste which 
guarded the corps from the affectation of such folly: 
this, all this, made them bold: for it kept them inno- 
cent; it kept them rational: no vulgar cant against 
England; no crime to conceal; no folly to be ashamed 
of. They were what they professed to be; and that 
was nothing less than the society asserting her lierty, 
according to the frame of the British constitution; her 
inheritance to be enjoyed in perpetual connection with 
the British empire. I do not mean to say that there 
were not divers and unseemly resolutions: the immen- 
sity of the means was inseparable from the excess. 



118 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCB, &C. 

Such are the great works of nature: such is the sea: 
but like the sea, the waste and the excess were lost in 
the advantage: and now, having given a Parliament to 
the people, the volunteers, I doubt not, will leave the 
people to Parliament, and thus close, specifically and 
majestically, a great work, which will place them above 
censure and above panegyric. These associations like 
other institutions, will perish: they will perish with the 
occasion that gave them being, and the gratitude of 
their country will WTite their epitaph, and say: "this 
phenomenon, the departed volunteer, justified only by 
the occasion, the birth of spirit and grievances, with 
some alloy of public evil, did more public good to Ire- 
land than all her institutions; he restored the liberties of 
his country, and thus from the grave, he answers his ene- 
mies," connected by freedom, as well as by allegiance, 
the two nations, Great Britian and Ireland, form a con- 
stitutional confederacy as well as one empire; the crown 
is one link, the constitution another; and, in my mind, 
the latter link is the most powerful. 

You can get a king any where, but England is the 
only country with whom you can participate a free 
constitution. This makes England your natural con- 
nection, and her king your natural as well as legal 
sovereign: this is a connection, not as Lord Coke has 
idly said, not as Judge Blackstone has fooljshly said, 
not as other judges have ignorantly said, by conquest; 
but as Molyneux has said, and as I now say, by com- 
pact; and this compact is a free constitution. Suffer 
me now to state some of the things essential to that free 
constitution; they are as follows: the independency of 
the Irish Parliament; the exclusion of the British Par- 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 119 

lianient from any authority in this realm; the restora- 
tion of the Irish Judicature and the exclusion of that of 
Great Britian. As to the perpetual mutiny Bill, it must 
be more than limited; it must be effaced; that Bill must 
fall or the constitution cannot stand; that bill was 
originally limited by this house, to two years, and it 
returned from England without the clause of limitation. 
What? a bill making the army independent of Parlia- 
ment and perpetual! I protested against it then, I have 
struggled with it since, and I have now come to destroy 
this great enemy of my country. The perpetual mu- 
tiny Bill must vanish out of the statute book; the excel- 
lent tract of Molyneux was burned: it was not answered; 
its flame illumined posterity. This evil paper shall 
be burned, but burned like a felon, that its execution 
may be a peace-offering to the people, and that a decla- 
ration of right may be planted on its guilty ashes; a new 
mutiny Bill must be formed after the manner of England, 
and a declaration of right ^ut on the front of it. 

As to the legislative powers of the privy council, I 
conceive them to be utterly inadmissible against the 
constitution, against the privileges of parliament, and 
against the constitution of the realm. Do not imagine 
such povi^er to be theoretical: it is, in a very high de- 
gree, a practical evil. I have here an inventory of bills 
altered and injured by the interference of the privy 
councils: money bills originated by them, protests by 
the crown in support of these money bills, proroga- 
tion following these protests. I have here a mutiny 
Bill of 1780, altered by the council, and made per- 
petual; a Catholic bill in 1778, where the council 
struck out the clause, repealing the test act; a militia 



120 GfiMS OF IRISH iSLdatJENCB, &C. 

bill where the council struck out the compulsory 
clause, requiring the crown to proceed to form a 
militia, and left it optional to his majesty's minister 
whether there should be a militia in Ireland. I have 
the money bill, in 1775, where the council struck out 
the clause, enabling his majesty to take a part of our 
troop, for general service, and left it to the minister to 
withdraw the forces against an act of parliament. I 
have to state the altered money bill of 1771, the altered 
money bill of 1775, the altered money bill of 1780; 
the day would expire before I could recount their ill 
doings. I, will never consent to have men, (God knows 
who) ecclesiastics, &c. &c., men unknown to the con- 
stitution of parliament, and only known to the minister, 
who has breathed into their nostrils an unconstitu- 
tional existence, steal to their dark divan to do mis- 
chief, and make nonsense of bills, which their lord- 
ships, the house of lords, or we, the house of com- 
mons, have thought good and fit for the people. No; 
these men have no legislative qualifications; they shall 
have no legislative power* 

1st. The repeal of the perpetual mutiny Bill, and the 
dependency of the Irish arms on the Irish Parliament. 
2d. The abolition of the legislativepowerof the coun- 
cil. 3d. The abrogation of the claim of England to 
make law for Ireland. 4th. The exclusion of the 
English house of Peers, and of the English King's 
Bench, from any judicial authority in this realm. 5th. 
the restoration of the Irish Peers to their final judica- 
ture. The independency of the Irish Parliament in its 
sole and exclusive legislature. 

These are my terms, I will take nothing from the 
crown. 



MR. GRATTAN'S SPEECH, 



A-CCOMPANYING HIS MOTION FOR THE DECLARATION OF IRISH 
RIGHTS, APRIL 19, 1780. 



I EEAD lord North's proposition; I wish to be satis- 
fiedj but I am controlled by a paper; I will not call it 
a law, it is the sixth of George the first. (The paper 
was read.) I will ask the gentlemen of the long robe, 
is this the law? I ask them whether it is not practice? 
I appeal to the judges of the land whether they are 
not in a course of declaring that the parliament of 
Great Britain, naming Ireland, binds her.'^ I appeal to 
the magistrates of justice whether they do not, from 
time to time, execute certain acts of the British Par- 
liament? I appeal to the officers of the army, whether 
they do not fine, and confine, and execute their fellow 
subjects by virtue of the mutiny act, an act of the 
British Parliament? And I appeal to this house, 
whether a country, so circumstanced, is free? Where 
is the freedorti of trade? Where is the security of 
property? Where is the liberty of the people? I, 
here, in this declaratory act, see my country proclaimed 
a slave! I see every man in this house enrolled a 
slave! I see the judges of the realm, the oracles of 
the law, borne down by an unauthorized foreign power, 
by the authority of the British Parliament against lawj 
I see the magistrates prostrate, and I see parliament 
11 



122 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

witness of these infringements and silent, (silent or em- 
ployed to preach moderation to the people whose 
liberties it will not restore;) I therefore say, with the 
voice of three millions of people, that notwithstanding 
the import of sugar, betel wood and panella, and the 
export of woollens and kerseys, nothing is safe, satis- 
factory, or honorable, nothing but a declaration of 
right. — What! are you with three millions of men at 
your back, with charters in one hand, and arms in the 
other, afraid to say you are a free people? Are you, 
the greatest house of commons that ever sat in Ireland, 
that want but this one act to equal that English house 
of commons, that passed the petition of right, or that 
other that passed the declaration of right, are you 
afraid to tell that British Parliament you are a free 
people? Are the cities, and the instructing counties, 
who have breathed a spirit that would have done honor 
to old Rome, when Rome did honor to mankind* are 
they to be free by connivance? Are the military as- 
sociations, those bodies whose origin, progress and 
deportment, have transcended, equalled at least, any 
thing in modern or ancient story; is the vast line of 
northern army, are they to be free by connivance? 
What man will settle among you? Where is the use 
of the naturalization Bill? Whatman will settle among 
you? Who will leave a land of liberty, and a settled 
government, for a kingdom, controlled by the parlia- 
ment of another country, whose liberty is a thing by 
stealth, whose trade a thing by permission, whose 
judges deny her charters, whose parliament leaves 
every thing at random; where the chance of freedom 
depends upon the hope, that the jury shall despise the 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C, 

judge, stating a British act, or a rabble stop the magis- 
trate executing it, rescue your abdicated privileges, 
and save the constitution by trampling on the govern- 
ment, by anarchy and confusion? 



TYRANNY, 

FROM THE SAME SPEECH. 

If England is a tyrant, you have made her so. It is the 
slave that makes the tyrant, and then murmurs at the 
tyrant that he himself has constituted. 



AMBITION, 

FROM THE SAME. 

I HAVE no ambition, unless it be the ambition to break 
your chain, and contemplate your glory. I never will 
be satisfied so long as the meanest cottager in Ireland 
has a link of the British chain clanking to his rags: he 
may be naked but he shall not be in iron; and I do see 
the time is at hand, the spirit is gone forth, the decla- 
ration is planted; and though great men should aposta- 
tise, yet the cause shall live; and though the public 
speaker should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast 
the organ that conveyed it, and the breath of liberty, 
like th^ word of the holy man, will not die with the 
prophet, but survive him. 



PERPETUAL MUTINY BILL, 

FROM THE SPEECH, NOV. 13, 1781. 



The brood that gathers upon the golden wheels of in- 
fluence, the hirelings of prostitution, always come for- 
ward to oppose every measure that can be offered 
from this quarter, for the good of the people; they are 
ever ready to swell the tide of influence, and ever 
ready to support the unconstitutional aims of a mer- 
cenary power. This is a very alarming consideration 
to those that love liberty better than the profits of 
office; in short we have added the tide of power to the 
sea of influence, and have bid majesty to govern by 
either. 



MR. FLOODS SPEECH, 

ON SIMPLE REPEAL. 

I DO not mean to oppose the most liberal interpretation 
that can be given to the British act of Parliament in 
c|uestion.* The right honorable gentleman defends it 
by saying, that if Ireland had been by name excepted; 
even that exception of Ireland might have been con- 
sidered as implying, that if she had not been ex#epted, 
she would have been bound; and certainly it would 
have been exceptionable for that very reason; and for 

• An act regulating the trade to Nevis, St Christopher and Mont- 
*eiTat, 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 125 

the same reason the law as now worded is exceptionable. 
But there was a niethod of avoiding both these excep- 
tions; and if I, a weak and incapable man can at first sight 
point out an easy method of doing so, how much more 
easy would it have been for his majesty's ministers to 
have done so. It might have been worded so as to have 
included all his majesty's dominions in Europe, that 
were subject to the legislative authority of the British 
Parliament: it would then have been an implied assertion 
of our constitution, instead of being now an implied in- 
fringement of it. Had the British Parliament renounced 
the right, she could have no objection to some such form 
of words: but she well knew that the repeal of the de- 
claratory act is no renunciation of the right; in this, and 
in every instance she shows an utter reluctance to such 
a renunciation: now every symptom of such reluctance 
on her part is equal to a thousand demonstrations that 
such a renunciation is necessary for us. I do not under- 
stand the doctrine of clerical mistakes: how far is it to 
lead us.'' where is its boundary? is it only to hold for 
the present time, and during the present ministry? or 
is it to extend to all times, and all ministries? If it is to 
do the latter, the doctrine is too dangerous to be ad- 
mitted; and if the former only, it is too partial. No min- 
ister of England, no attorney general of Ireland, could 
desire a more convenient principle than that the doc- 
trine of clerical error, was to excuse an act of the British 
Parliament binding Ireland: but such a doctrine would 
soon leave our constitution where it was, and would 
efface the glories we have been acquiring. 

This brings me to speak of the repeal of the declara- 
tory act of George 1st, as it is now proceeding. In the 
11* 



126 OEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

first place it is an undeniable principle of law, that the 
mere repeal of a declaratory act does not renounce the 
principle of it; and it is clear to common sense that 
nothing but a final renouncing of the principle of this 
law is adequate to oar security. With regard to this 
law of George 1st, the maxim which I have mentioned 
obtains with peculiar force. Wliat is the title of the 
law? It is an act for the better securing the depen- 
dency of Ireland: on the face of it, therefore, it imports 
expressly, that that dependency did before exist, and 
thatj by consequence, it must continue afterwards; un- 
less renounced, it had, indeed, too strong an antecedent 
existence,, to be destroyed by any weak implications. 
The first authority of law, known to the English con- 
stitution, is that of the great Lord Coke: his authority 
is expressly against us and m favor of the English Par- 
liament. Will any lawyer say that the clear and decided 
opinion of Lord Coke, in a matter of law, is a thing to 
be contemned? add to this a number of statutes, made 
by the English Parliament, and acquiesced in by the 
Irish nation, antecedent to the declaratory law by 
George 1 st; and will any man be so rash, so foolish, or so 
corrupt as to say that such a pretension is to be over- 
looked? or, that it can, rationally be stated to be so void 
of principle and colour, as that the bare repeal of a sub- 
sequent and barely declaratory act can annihilate it? 
Let no man conceive such a thing. 

The honorable gentleman* says that the giving up the 
final judicature is a decisive proof of sincerity in the Bri- 
tish Parliament, because it cannot be supposed that our 
fijial judicature would carry British laws into execution, 
^Mr. Grattan. 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 127 

bat how far does this reasoning go? It shows, indeed, 
that tliey think the spirit of this country is so unanimoug 
on this subject at present^ as that nobody will appeal to 
their judicature; or that if any person should appeal, 
that the decree would be resisted and baffled in the exe- 
cutioa of it; they therefore, very wisely deternjine to 
give lip what it is impossible to retain: h\xt though this 
nfiay extend (as long as the present spirit continues) to 
internal final judicature, and to internal legislation, yet 
it does not at all extend to external legislation, or to 
the final judicature proper to that species of legislation. 
Now what is external legislation? It is that species of 
legislation, which Mr. Fox expressly specifies and as- 
serts, and which not oue Kiitish member controverted; 
that is, in other words, the whole of commercial and 
marine legislation. Now what is. the final judicature 
in that? It is the British fleet! Witness what happened 
in this kingdom, the other day; the spirit of the country 
was such that the commissioners dared not refuse a 
clearance to a vessel though freighted with goods, pro- 
hibited by a British act of Parliament, but though the 
vessel had her clearance she could not sail; and why? 
because the Stay Frigate was in the bay, ready ta seize 
and confiscate. 

Th^e honorable gentleman knows the story ta be true 
and has quoted the fact, himself, within these walls. 
Now this maritime, or external legislation, and this final 
judicature of the Stay Frigate is a thing which nothing 
can reach but a formal renunciation of the right on the 
part of Great Britian. Is this a situation in which an 
able general would leave an army? or, in which a wise 
patriot would leave his country? certainly not. The 



128 GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C, 

honorable member says that the royal word is as firm 
as a parliamentary renunciation. Does not the honor- 
able gentleman know that the words of the king are 
the words of the ministry in all constitutional and par- 
liamentary consideration? How often in his short ex- 
perience has he known that security to fail? Did it 
give us a Judge's bill in Lord Towsend's time? Did it 
keep twelve thousand men in the kingdom ever since? 
Has it secured economy to us, so often promised, and 
not yet arrived? I will not multiply instances. Now 
these are cases where the most express words were 
used in the speech from the throne, which is the speech 
of the minister and not of the king? In this case is 
there any express mention of renunciation? No such 
thing. Now if express words have failed, why may 
not words fail which are not express? Again, I 
ask, will any man pretend to afhrm, that the declara- 
tion of the king can be equal to an act of legislature? 
No man in his senses can believe it to be so. In the 
American question what was the doctrine? That if 
the king wished it ever so much, yet it was not in his 
power to give up the power of the British Parliament. 
Did the king ever attempt to make the smallest relax- 
ation without an act of legislature to authorize it. I 
ask the honorable member whether the king, by a dec- 
laration to the British Parliament, could give up any 
of the rights or pretensions, of the Irish legislature? 
I am sure he will answer no. Then, by what rule, I 
ask, can any declaration of the king to us give up or 
cancel any pretension of the British Parliament? What 
authority on earth can be so perfectly adequate to it, 
as that of the parliament of Great Britain itself? But 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 129 

the honorable gentleman would not accept a great 
charter, he says, from the British parliament; so jealous 
is he of its authority; nor would I, provided it con- 
tained an assertion of its legislature over us, because 
that would be nominally a great charter, but really a 
defeasance and concealment of our constitution. Now 
this is impliedly the case in an act merely, and simply, 
of repeal; but if it contained a renunciation of all such 
authority, I would accept of it, because then it would 
indeed be a great charter; for what was the great 
charter of our early kings to their subjects? Was it 
not, in fact, a renunciation of the usurpations of those 
kings, and nothing more? It was not a donation, but a 
mere recognition of the rights of the subject; which 
recognition became necessary, only, in consequence of 
the regal usurpations. Now, I ask, did those kings, 
or any part of mankind ever think that in renouncing 
those usurpations, they re-established them? No man 
was ever so frantic as to suppose it; how then could 
a parallel renunciation by the British Parliament have 
any tendency to legalize its usurpation? I will venture 
to say, that a renunciation of all right is the last method 
that the British Parliament will think of taking by way 
of establishing her authority over Ireland; and why? 
because it is the most effectual way on earth of de- 
feating it. The sound of an English act of parliament 
ought not to frighlen us out of the sense of it as if the 
sound of it could be destructive to us; an act of repeal 
would be as noxious as an act of renunciation, and if 
the sense of it can be salutary, it is by its being an act 
of renunciation. Any other act m.ay be an exercise of 
legislation over us; but an act of renunciation cannot 



130 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

be so. The honorable member said that I had thought 
upon a particular subject until it had become my 
weakness; may not the remark become applicable to 
himself? for surely if his zeal on this subject had not 
outgone even his judgment, great as that is, he would 
not use the arguments on this occasion, which on any 
other, he would reprobate from the lips of any servant 
of the crown; he would not call a British act of par- 
liament, including Ireland, a clerical error; he would 
not say that a speech from the throne is equal to an 
act of parliament; that a British act of repeal is a safe 
exertion of her power towards us, • but that an act of 
renunciation would not be so: he would not say that a 
renunciation would be a better security, and yet that a 
repeal is sufBcient, in a case where no security can 
be too great, and in which scarce any is adequate; be 
would not say that good faith is equal to legal security, 
or that legal security, with the addition of good faith, 
is not better than the latter alone. 

It is not pleasant for me to differ with the honorable 
member; but in this case it is unavoidable; it is one of 
these cases in which I feel myself impelled by so strong 
a duty, that nothing personal either to myself or others 
can control me; and I feel it the more my duty to 
speak out on this occasion, because I have never ceased 
to repent my having not done so in lord Buckingham's 
administration with respect to the word foreign which 
was then inserted in our resolutions — I will not say 
with evil design, but certainly with evil example. I 
differed wilh the honorable member and others, whom 
I much respect with regard to that expression: I dis- 
approve of it in the strongest terms in private confer- 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 131 

cnce; they did not perhaps approve, but they did not 
disapprove of it, and therefore it passed without notice. 
Since, however, it has been felt, and the objection 
which the honorable gentleman has this day made to 
the British act which he has quoted, is, that it seems 
to assume 9 power over om foreign trade. Now this 
is the very principle upon which I objected then to the 
word foreign^ though I was not at that time supported 
in it; with this omen, therefore, (that I may sometimes 
differ with the honorable member and not always be in 
an error) I will go on. The honorable member says 
that we have the faith of nations to depend on. Now, 
as to the faith of nations I have this to say, that like 
every thing else, where it is the best thing that can be 
had, it is good for that reason; but that where it is not 
the best thing that can be had, it is, for the same 
reason, not good: what follows? That it is good be- 
tween disconnected nations, because there is nothing 
stronger between, (except force) but it is not good 
between countries connected by civil government, 
because there is something stronger there, and that is 
legal security: but what does the faith of nations be- 
tween unconnected kingdoms amount to, I ask? to what 
but to perpetuate warfare, and an everlasting appeal 
to heaven, as it is called, by a peculiar and very bar- 
barous profanation? In short, what is a state of depen- 
dence upon good faith, other than a state of nature, 
which, though not a stale of war, is yet so liable to it, 
that it is to avoid its disorder that w^e have yielded to 
the incumbrances of government? Each of these con- 
ditions has some disadvantages; but it would be utterly 
absurd to retain the disadvantages of both. 



132 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

If we will submit to the insecurity of mere good 
faith, let us be freed from the burden of government; 
but if we are to have the burden of government, let us 
take care also to have its security. Look at England; 
has she trusted lo the good faith of Ireland ^ that Ireland 
will never have any other sovereign than ftie monarch 
that sits upon the British throne? No; she has a per- 
petual Irish law to put it out of doubt. 

Has England trusted to the good faith of Ireland 
that our Parliament should never pass a law disagree- 
able or disadvantageous to British government? No, she 
has got a perpetual Irish law to make it impossible. 
Does any man think that she acted unwisely, or illiber- 
ally in doing so? No man can think so. How then 
can it be unwise, or illiberal in us to desire a legal 
security in this pointy upon which all other legal security 
depends? The good faith of Ireland is equal to that of 
any country in the world; and if her good faith was 
not a sufficient security to England with the British 
superiority of power to support it, how can good faith 
be a sufficient security to us in our inferiority? 

When the stamp act was repealed, and the declara- 
tory act passed as to America, America was told that 
it was a sacrifice to British pride, and that it never 
would be exercised. But how long was it before it 
was exercised? Is there any man in England that would 
ask America now to be content with the bare repeal of 
that declaratory act? Then why should he ask it of 
Ireland? Ireland had a Parliamentary constitution, the 
same as that of England, with an hereditary and enno- 
bled branch of Legislature, invested with final judica- 
ture, above three hundred years before any colony in 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCB, &C. 133 

America had a name. These colonies have had popu- 
lar assemblies, it is true, but not parliaments consisting 
of kings, lords and commons, with all the powers be- 
longing to them. The final judicature of America was 
never to any of the orders of her provincial assem- 
blies, nor to the house of lords of Great Britain, but 
to the British privy council; yet with these, and a 
thousand other marks of a distinct kingdom in Ireland, 
and of a colony constitution in the American provinces, 
without analogy of fact, and without inference of ar- 
gument, Ireland is at this day, as to the legislative 
claim of the British Parliament, sunk to a level with 
the colonies of America, but though she is argumen- 
tatively depressed to that level, where the parallel is 
injurious to her, she is not lifted up to that level where 
the parallel would be advantageous. 

For instance, England says, that constitutionally she 
has a right to make laws for Ireland as well as for the 
American provinces; but when the declaratory law is to 
be given up as to both, a simple repeal is enough as to 
Ireland, whilst an express and final renunciation is of- 
fered to America. This difference can have no foun- 
dation in equity or in reason; it can therefore only be 
grounded on a difference in situation, that is to say, 
that England is obliged to relinquish more to America, 
than she is compelled to surrender to Ireland, and that 
neither England, nor any other nation ever relinquished 
any authority they could retain. Now I do not blame 
England for this, because it is the nature of men; but 
I blame Ireland if she does not see it, and if she does 
not know, therefore, that nothing is relinquished that 
is not renounced. I have as great an opinion of the 
12 



134 GEMS OP misn ELOaUENCE, &c. 

good faith of England as any man, and therefore I 
wish to have it solemnly pledged. Now a bare repeal, 
I say, does not pledge her good faith never to exercise 
the power, because it is not a renunciation of it, it is 
therefore that I desire a renunciation; and why? 
because a renunciation will, in the first place, give all 
the legal security that the cause is capable of; and 
because, in the next place, it will pledge the good faith 
of Great Britain expressly, and when it is expressly 
pledged, I shall be ready to confide in it. A positive 
promise is in every case in the world, more to be de- 
pended on, than a constructive one, and the greater the 
honor of the nation that makes it, the more it is to be 
confided in, and the more it is to be sought; but a sim- 
ple repeal is not even a constructive promise. Why is 
it, that in all treaties between unconnected nations, the 
utmost care is taken to use the most explicit terms? It 
is not because the most explicit terms may not be vio- 
lated, but it is because the violation of them is highly 
dishonorable and highly dangerous to the state that is 
guilty of it. If after the conduct that Ireland has ever 
held to Great Britain, England should formally re- 
nounce her legislative pretension now, and afterwards 
should attempt to resume it, her own act of parliament 
would be her own condemnation all over Europe; every 
cabinet on the continent would exclaim against her 
baseness, and would think themselves authorised to 
assist the oppressed subjects, whom her own act 
would prove not to be rebels. 

Every man, on every side, and of every description, 
equally confesses that a renunciation is necessary. 
The honorable gentleman, himself, and every other 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCB, &C, Id5 

man who is content with a simple repeal, profess thtt 
they are so, only because they consider a repeal us 
being a renunciation; now this is unanswerable; a re- 
nunciation is certainly a renunciation; nobody can deliy 
that; but a simple repeal may not be so; one therefore 
is certain, the other, at best, is uncertain. Which shall 
I prefer, in a case of this consequence? But this is 
not all; a repeal of a declaratory law, not only may wot 
be a renunciation of its principle, but I maintain that 
it certainly is not so; in this I am so clear, that I stake 
my character with you, for common sense upon the 
subject; in this, I am so clear, that my motion shall be 
an appeal to the nine judges of Ireland, and, if you 
please, to the twelve judges of England also upon the 
point. I have appealed to all the great lawyers in the 
house, and every one of them has confessed, that a re- 
peal of a declaratory law is not a renunciation of the 
legal principle. Two only, have attempted this eva- 
sion; they say that, in this case, there was no color 
nor principle of law at the bottom of that act, and that 
therefore when the act is removed nothing can renwun; 
now this is very well on one side of the water, but it 
is totally false on the other; here we say there was no 
color nor principle of law at the bottom of that act, 
but in England they assert the very contrary. In 
England therefore, they will have a right to say, that 
after the repeal the principle will remain. What we 
may say here will not avail to our security^ unless 
England can be got to concur with us. If England, 
indeed, will renounce the principle, as we do, the re- 
peal may be sufficient, that is to say, a repeal with a 
renunciation by England will be sufficient; but a repeal 



136 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

without such a renunciation will not be suflBcient; it is 
but three days ago, that the honorable gentleman 
thought a repeal inadequate, and therefore declared an 
intention to bring in a declaratory Irish law, in order 
to have the great seals of both kingdoms affixed to the 
recognition of our constitution. What has happened 
since, to render such an intention less necessary? 
Nothing has been mentioned to diminish the necessity, 
but some men are fond to argue that our address has 
bound us to a simple repeal. 

Now first I say, that if such an error had have been 
committed in the address, it would be hard that the 
constitution of a great nation should be irrevocably 
tied to the diction of any individual; but I utterly deny 
the fact: I desire the words of the address to be pointed 
out that mention a simple repeal of that act as adequate 
to our views; and as no such words can be pointed 
out, I will mention words in it that prove the contrary. 
The grievance, as to this point, stated by the address 
as necessary to be redressed, is not that act alone, but 
that act and the claims of it. Now the repeal may 
take away the act, but nothing, except a renunciation, 
can take away the claims. The claim is the claim of 
right, or the legal principle either real or assumed. 
The simple repeal takes away the declaration only, 
but leaves behind the claim, or legal pretension. I 
•ay, therefore, that the address is full to the purpose, 
and that we must misconstrue that address before we 
can perfect our constitution: clear, however, as these 
things are, I will not affirm that a majority will instantly 
accede to them; but this I know, that majorities can 



GEMS 09 mtSH ELOaUEHCB, &e. 137 

•ometimes err, and that majoritfes can ^ometkneB 
change their opinion. 

What was the first featiire of this session of par- 
liament? a triumphant majority in support of Lord Car- 
lisle against any redress of our injuries in Portugal. 
What followed? The honorable member proposed an 
alteration of the perpetual mutiny bill; a rank majority 
opposed him. I attempted it in another form; a rank 
majority opposed any reformation of it; it was faction 
in one, it was disappointed ambition in another; in both 
it was any thing but truth and the constitution. What 
was the cry of the parasites of the castle? The sugar 
bill and the mutiny law were such acquisitions to this 
country, they said, that Ireland had nothing to redress, 
and nothing but industry in her people, and gratitude in 
her parliament could now become her. Was not this 
gabble held, and was it not even popular for a while? 
I brought forward, notwithstanding, a vindication of 
your privileges against the manifold perversions of the 
law of Poyning; and what did I ask of you? not im- 
plicitly to adopt the words and sentiments of any indi- 
vidual, but to appoint a committee of yourselves to 
examine the authorities I had produced in your behalf, 
that, if I had erred in fact, or in inference, you might 
not be misled; and that if I had, you might benefit by 
the proofs, and perpetuate the decaying evidences of 
your constitution; yet even such a committee was de- 
nied, not to one, but to the parliament and to the nation. 
The honorable member then brought forward, in the 
form of an address, an assertion of your exclusive 
legislature; a huge majority opposed the reception of it. 
I brought it on again, by a resolution, then simple, that 
12* 



138 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

you, yourselves were the only representatives of the 
people; a large majority refused to affirm it: these re- 
iterated defeats struck like thunder upon the hearts of 
the people, and in these decided and stupendous major- 
ities they thought they saw the death of the constitu- 
tion. A voice from America shouted to liberty! the 
echo of it caught your people as it passed along the 
Atlantic, and they renewed the voice till it reverberated 
here. 

What followed? all the propositions that had been 
separately reprobated, were now collectively adopted; 
the representatives of the people articulated, at length, 
the sense of their constituents. The case of Ireland, 
originally stated by the great Molyneux, and burned 
at the revolution by the parliament of England, is not 
now afraid of the fire; it has risen from that phoenix 
urn, and with the flames of its cradle it illuminates our 
isle! What is the result? It is now in your power, and 
I trust it will be in your wisdom to do final justice to 
the rights and interests of your country; for me, I 
hope, I have not been peculiarly wanting to them. 
^ At an early period of my life, on a question of em- 
bargo, in consequence of a proclamation, founded on 
a British act of parliament, 1 brought the criminal 
gazette within these walls, and at your bar I arraigned 
the delinquent. The house was alarmed, and I with- 
drew any question on the proclamations being with- 
drawn. If you ask why I did not pursue it to a formal 
declaration of right? I answer, for I wish to be answer- 
able to you for every part of my life; I answer, that 
the time was not ripe for it. The first spring of the 
constitution is the elective power of the people; till 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 139 

that was reinforced by limiting the duration of parlia- 
ments, little could be done. The people wanted con- 
stitutional privilege; till the fabric of usurpation, found- 
ed on the law of Poyning had been shaken to its 
foundation, little could be done; the parliament wanted 
conscious dignity, till the people were armed; every 
thing could not be done; the nation v»^anted military 
power. Those w^ere necessary antecedents: the public 
mind wanted much cultivation; the seed, too, was ne- 
cessary to be sown; and if I have not been wanting to 
the preparation of the soil, may I not be permitted to 
watch over the harvest? To that harvest, too, as well 
as to every other, a prosperous season was necessary, 
and that season presented itself in the American war. 
When, therefore, the honorable member, in the sunshine 
of that season, and of his own abilities, brought for- 
ward a declaration of rights in lord Buckingham's 
government, after that administration had amended his 
proposition for the purpose of defeating it, I stepped 
forward, in office as I was, and at the hazard of that 
office, and rescued the principle from the disgrace of a 
postponement, or from the ruin of rejection. In this 
session, too, I hope that my humble efforts have not 
been peculiarly wanting. In ability I will yield to 
many, in zeal to none; and, if I have not served the 
public cause more than many men, this at least, I may 
say, I have sacrificed as much to it. Do you repent of 
that sacrifice? If I am asked, I answer no! Who could 
repent of a sacrifice to truth and honor? to a country 
that he loves, and a country that is grateful? Do you 
repent ofit? No. But I should not rejoice in it, if it were 
only to be attended with a private deprivation, and not 



140 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

to be accompanied by all its gains to my country. I 
have a peculiar right, therefore, to be ardent and so- 
licitous about the issue of it, and no man shall stop mo 
in my progress. 

Were the voice with which I utter this, the last effort 
of an expiring nature — were the accent that conveys it 
to you the breath that was to waft me to that grave, to 
which we all tend, and to which my footsteps rapidly 
accelerate, I would go on; I would make my exit by a 
loud demand of your rights, and I call upon the God of 
truth and liberty who has often favoured you, and who 
has, of late, looked down upon you with such a peculiar 
grace and glory of protection, to continue to you hia 
inspirings; to crown you with the spirit of his comple- 
tion, and to assist you against the errors of those that 
are honest, as well as against the machinations of all 
that are not so. 

Mr. Flood's motion was, that the opinion of all the 
judges be desired on the following question: "Does 
the repeal of a declaratory act amount, in legal con- 
struction, to a repeal or renunciation of the legal prin- 
ciple on which the declaratory act grounded itself.*^" 



MR. GRATTAN. 



THE CELEBRATED ATTACK UPON MR. FLOOD. 

The resolution of the 19th of July, 1782, was art- 
fully and totally misrepresented. It was said that it 
would have prevented the agitation of the question, 
whether the claim of England was relinquished. The 
answer is the resolution itself. I had shown it to some 
gentlemen before I read it, and as it had been misunder- 
stood by some, I thought it better, at that late hour, 
not to debate it, but to produce a resolution tanta- 
mount; and as the motion had been misconceived, I 
gave copies of it; and as it had been misrepresented 
in the public papers, I sent copies of it to all of them, 
and I must observe, that the very gentlemen who had 
objected to it when they heard it indistinctly, after 
they read it, acknowledged the motion to be excellent. 
1 will read it: "That this legislature is independent, 
and that any man who shall, by writing or otherwise, 
maintain that a right in any oth.er country to make 
laws for Ireland, internally or externally exists, or can 
be revived, is inimical to the peace of both kingdoms." 
Is this a truth, or is it not.^ Has any man a privilege 
to maintain that Great Britain has a right, had a right, 
or can revive a right to make law for Ireland? Is there 
any man who will say, that a person maintaining the 
doctrine is not criminal in the highest degree.^ , Sup- 
pose any member should maintain, that Great Britain 



142 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

has, or can have, a right to make laws for Ireland, 
would you not bring him to the bar? And suppose any 
man should publish such a doctrine, would you not 
order the publication to be burned by the hangman? 

The resolution was a declaration of right, and more, 
for it made it criminal to deny your rights. In repre- 
senting the resolution, they changed the terms of it, as 
they perverted its meaning. They made the resolu- 
tions say, that every man who agitated the question, 
whether the British Parliament had relinquished her 
claims, was criminal: whereas, the resolution said, that 
any man who maintained a right in the British Parlia- 
ment over Ireland, was criminal. Now it may be 
very criminal to assert, that the parliament of England 
has a right over Ireland, and yet very fair to examine 
whether she lias relinquished her pretensions. In 
short, you had before declared in your address, the 
rights of your country, and the resolution was decla- 
rative that it was criminal to deny them. No man has 
a right to deny the liberty of his country. Here the 
privilege of the press stops, and the rights of the indi- 
vidual also; both have a right to maintain the liberty 
of their country, as they have an obligation to defend 
it; but neither have a right to deny or betray her lib- 
erty. Such a right would be, in fact, no right, but the 
licence of self destruction: neither the press nor the 
individual have a right to question the principles of the 
laws of nature or of the laws of the land. No man 
has a privilege to maintain the rights of murder or of 
tyranny. What! maintain that you are not free be- 
cause you have no privilege to assert a right in 
England to take away your liberty! What is the law 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &a 143 

that excludes the supremacy of the Pope? Does it not 
make the maintaining that right penal? Does that law 
take away your liberty? What is the law with respect 
to the house of Stewart? Does not that law make the 
assisting the rights of that family penal? Does that 
law take away your liberty? Does the honorable 
member think it reasonable to be withheld from as- 
serting the rights of the Pope, and the pretender, pro- 
vided we have a privilege of denying our own? What 
is the jurisdiction act? It declares that the rights 
claimed by Ireland shall not be questioned; it is my 
resolution. The resolution says, you shall not main- 
tain a right in England to make laws for you. The 
act says you shall not question the rights of Ireland, 
Both impose silence on those men who would deny the 
liberties of Ireland. How comes it that the act has 
not alarmed you? The fact is that the resolution was 
studiously misrepresented, and the privilege of the 
press employed to delude the understanding of the 
public. 

It was said "^'that the pen would fall from the hand, 
and the foetus of the mind would die unborn" if men 
had not a privilege to maintain a right in the parlia- 
ment of England to make law for Ireland. The affec- 
tation of zeal, and a burst of forced and metaphorical 
conceits, aided by the acts of the press, gave an alarm 
which I hope was momentary, and which only ex- 
posed the artifice of those who were wicked, and tha 
haste of those who were deceived. 

But it is not the slander of an evil tongue that can de- 
fame me. I maintain my reputation in public, and io 
private life. No man who is not a bad character, can 



144 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

ever say that I deceived; no country can call me cheat; 
but I will suppose such a public character. I will 
suppose such a man to have existence; I will begin 
with his character in his political cradle, and 1 will 
follow him to the last state of political dissolution. 

I w^ill suppose him, in the first stage of his life, to 
have been intemperate; in the second to have been cor- 
rupt; and in the last seditious; that after an envenomed 
attack on the persons and measures of a succession of 
viceroys, and after much declamation against theii: ille- 
galities and their profusion, that he took office and 
became a supporter of government when the profusion 
of ministers had greatly increased, and their crimes 
multiplied beyond example: when your money bills 
were altered, without reserve, by the council, when 
an embargo was laid on your export trade, and a war 
declared against the liberties of America; at such a 
critical moment I will suppose this gentleman to be 
corrupted by a great sinecure office to muzzle his dec- 
lamation, to swallow his invective, to give his assent 
and vote to the ministers, and to become a supporter 
of government, its measures, its embargo, and its 
American war. I will suppose that he was suspected 
by the government that had bought him, and in conse- 
quence thereof, that he thought proper to resort to the 
acts of a trimmer, the last sad refuge of disappointed 
ambition, that, with respect to the constitution of his 
country, that part, for instance, which regarded the 
mutiny bill, when a clause of reference w^as intro- 
duced, whereby the articles of war which were, or 
hereafter might be, passed in England, should be cur- 
rent in Ireland, without the interference of her parlia- 



&EMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 145 

ment; when such a clause was in view, I will suppose 
this gentleman to have absconded; again when the bill 
was made perpetual, I will suppose him again to have 
absconded; but a year and a half after the bill had 
passed, then 1 will suppose this gentleman to have 
come forAvard, and to say that your constitution had 
been destroyed by the perpetual bill. With regard to 
that part of the constitution which relates to the law 
of Poyning's, I will suppose the gentleman to have \ 
made many a long, very long, disquisition before he 
took office, but after he received office, to have been 
as silent on that subject as before lie had been lo- 
quacious. 

That when money bills, under color of that law, 
were altered year after year, as in 1775 and 1776, and 
when the bills so altered were resumed and passed, I 
will suppose that gentleman to have absconded or ac- 
quiesced, and to have supported the minister who made 
the alteration; but when he was dismissed from office, 
and a member introduced a bill to remedy this evil, I 
will suppose that this gentleman inveighed against the 
mischief, against the remedy, and against the person 
of the introducer, who did that duty which he himself 
for seven years had abandoned. With respect to that 
part of the constitution which is connected with the re- 
peal of the sixth George the first, when the adequacy of 
the repeal was debating in the house, I will suppose 
this gentleman to make no kind of objection: that he 
never named at that time the word "renunciation,'^ and 
that, on the division on that subject, he absconded; 
but, when the office he had lost was given to another 
man, that then he came forward, and exclaimed against 
13 



146 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

the measure; nay, he went into the public streets to 
canvass for sedition, that he became a rambling incen- 
diary, and endeavored to excite a mutiny in the volun- 
teers against an adjustment between Great Britain and 
Ireland, of liberty and repose, which he had not the 
virtue to make, and against an administration, who had 
the virtue to free the country without buying the 
members. 

With respect to commerce, I will suppose this gen- 
tleman to have supported an embargo which lay on 
the country for three years, and almost destroyed it; 
and when an address in 1778 to open her trade was 
propounded, to remain silent and inactive; and with 
respect to that other part of her trade, which regarded 
the duty on sugar, when the merchants were examined 
in 1778, on the inadequate protecting duty, when the 
inadequate duty was voted, when the act was recom- 
mitted, when another duty was proposed, when the 
bill returned with the inadequate duty substituted, 
when the altered bill was adopted; on every one of 
these questions, I will suppose the gentleman to ab- 
scond; but a year and a half after the mischief was 
done, he out of office, I will suppose him to come forth 
and to tell his country, that her trade had been de- 
stroyed by an inadequate duty on English sugar, as 
her constitution had been ruined by a perpetual mutiny 
bill. With relation to three-fourths of our fellow-sub- 
jects, the Roman Catholics, when a bill was introduced 
to grant them rights of property and religion, I will 
suppose this gentleman to have come forth to give his 
negative to their pretensions; in the same manner I 
will suppose him to have opposed the institution of 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 147 

the volunteers, to which we owe so much, and that he 
went to a meeting in his own county to prevent their 
establishment; that he himself kept out of their associa- 
tions; that he was almost the only man in this house 
who was not in uniform, and that he never was a vol- 
unteer until he ceased to be a placeman, and until he 
became an incendiary. 

With regard to the liberties of America which were 
inseparable from ours, I will suppose this gentleman 
to have been an enemy decided and unreserved; that 
he voted against her liberty, and voted, moreover, for 
an address to send four thousand Irish troops to cut the 
throats of the Americans; that he called these butchers, 
"armed negotiators," and stood with a metaphor in his 
mouth, and a bribe in his pocket, a champion against 
the rights of America, the only hope of Ireland, and 
the only refuge of the liberties of mankind. 

Thus defective in every relationship, whether to 
constitution, commerce and toleration, I will suppose 
this man to have added much private improbity to his 
public crimes; that his probity was like his patriotism, 
and his honor on a level with his oath; he loves to 
deliver panegyrics on himself. I will interrupt him 
and say, sir, you are much mistaken, if you think, that 
your talents have been as great as your life has been 
reprehensible; you began your parliamentary career 
with an acrimony and personality which could have 
been justified only by a supposition of virtue: after a 
rank and clamorous opposition, you became on a sud- 
den silent; you were silent for seven years; you were 
silent on the greatest questions, and you w^ere silent 
for money. 



148 GEMS OF miSH ELOaUENGE^ &C. 

In 1773 while anegociation vvas^ pending to sell your 
talents and your turbulence, you absconded from your 
duty in parliament, you forsook your law of Poyning's, 
you forsook the questions of economy, and abandoned 
all the old themes of your former declamation; you 
were not at that period to be found in the house: you 
were seen, like a guilty spirit, haunting the lobby of 
the house of commons, watching the moment in 
which the question should be put, that you might 
sranish; you were descried with a criminal anxiety, 
retiring from the scenes of your past glory; or you 
were perceived coasting the upper benches of this 
house, like a bird of prey, with an evil aspect and a 
sepulchral note, meditating to pounce on its quarry — 
these ways (they were not the ways of honor) you 
practised pending a negotiation which was to end 
either in your sale or your sedition: the former taking 
place, you supported the rankest measures that ever 
came before parliament; the embargo of 1776 for ex- 
ample. '^0 fatal embargo, that breach of law and ruin 
of commerce!" 

You supported the unparalleled profusion and job- 
bing of lord Harcourt's scandalous ministry — the ad- 
dress to support the American war — the other address 
to send four thousand men, which you had yourself 
declared to be necessary for the defence of Ireland, to 
fight against the liberties of America, to which you 
had declared yourself a friend. You, sir, who delight 
to utter execrations, against the American commission- 
ers of 1778, on account of their hostility to America; 
you, sir, who manufacture stage thunder against 
Mr. Eden for his anti- American principles; — you, sir, 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 149 

whom it pleases to chaunt a hymn to the immortal 
Hampden; — you, sir, approved of the tyranny exer- 
cised against America; — and you, sir, voted four thou- 
sand Irish troops to cut the throats of the Americans 
fighting for their freedom, fighting for your freedom, 
fighting for the great principle — liberty; but you found 
at last (and this should be an eternal lesson to men of 
your craft and cunning) that the king had only dishon- 
ored you; the court had bought, but could not trust 
you; and having voted for the worst measures, you^ re- 
mained, for seven years, the creature of salary^ without 
the confidence of government. Mortified at the dis- 
covery, and stung by disappointment, you* betake 
yourself to the sad expedients of duplicity; you try 
the sorry game of a trimmer in your progress to the 
acts of an incendiary; you give no honest support 
either to the government or to the people: you, at the 
most critical period of their existence, take no part, 
you sign no non-consumption agreement, you are no 
volunteer, you oppose no perpetual mutiny bill, no 
altered sugar bill; you declare that you lament that 
the declaration of right should have been brought for- 
ward; and observing, with regard to prince and people, 
the same impartial treachery and desertion, you justify 
the suspicion of your sovereign, by betraying the go- 
vernment as you had sold the people; until at last by 
this hollow conduct, and for some other steps, the 
result of mortified ambition, being dismissed, and? 
another person put in your place, you fly to the ranks 
of the volunteers and canvass for mutiny; you announce 
that the country was ruined by other men, during that 
period in which she had been sold by you. Your logic 
13* 



150 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

is that the repeal of a declaratory law is not the repeal 
of a law at all, and the effect of that logic is, an 
English act, affecting to emancipate Ireland, by exer- 
cising over her the legislative authority of the British 
Parliament. 

Such has been your conduct, and at such conduct 
every order of your fellow subjects have a right to ex- 
claim. The merchant may say to you — the constitu- 
tionalist may say to you — the American may say to 
you — and I, I now say, and say, to your beard, sir — 
you are not an honest man. 



MR. FLOOD 

ENTERS INTO A STATEMENT OF HIS CONDUCT, IN REPLV TO 
MR. GRATTAN's answer TO HIS SPEECH, ON THE 28tH DAY 
OF OCTOBER, 1783. 



November 1, 1783. 
Sir: 

I WISH to take the earliest opportunity of speaking 
a few words to you, and addressing a few to the house, 
upon the situation in which I left this house last Tues- 
day. You heard, sir, and the public heard me, the sub- 
ject, as I think, of an unwarranted attack. I rose to 
defend myself I am sure, with temper. I am not 
lightly moved; and I think I should be lightly moved, 
indeed, if I could have been moved by that. I was 
however interrupted, though I did not bring any ficti- 
tious subject before you, or set out without the least 
appearance of any argument; in consequence of this 
interruption, sir, I left the house; but soon after, I un- 
derstand, that the house thought proper to say, they 
would give me liberty to proceed, and I wish to take 
the earliest opportunity of returning them my thanks 
for that permission; at the same time, sir, that I re- 
turn my thanks for that permission, I hope that they 
will suffer me to render it not an empty indulgence, but 
upon the present occasion, to take up the subject where 
I left it the last night. 
(Mr. Foler rose to order, but Mr. Flood proceeded.) 



152 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

I hope gentlemen will not interrupt me: when they 
find me going out of order, when they hear me draw- 
ing fictitious characters, let them stop me; when I say 
anything unparliamentary — when I endeavor to recall 
the asperity of that day, which, whilst I despise, I must 
disapprove, I rise in defence of what I consider an in- 
jured character, as I have endeavored to defend the 
rights of my country for twenty-four years, I hope they 
will permit me to defend my reputation. 

My life has been divided into three parts, and it has 
been despatched by three epithets; one part, sir, that 
which preceded lord Harcourt's administration; an- 
other between lord Harcourt's and lord Carlisle'^s; and: 
the third, which is subsequent. The first has a sumr- 
mary justice or injustice, done to it, by being said to 
be intemperate; the second is treated in like manner, 
by being said to be venal; and the conduct of the third, 
is said to have been that of an incendiary. 

The attack made upon my person went back, not 
only to the arguments of two or three days before, but 
to the conduct of twenty jears antecedent; therefore, 
sir, I hope, that if animadversions of twenty yeai^ are 
allowed to one, I may have an opportunity of refer- 
ring to arguments used three days ago. With regard 
to that period of my life which is despatched by the 
word "intemperate,*' I beg, gentlemen would consider 
the hard situation of public characters, if that is to 
be their treatment; that period takes in a number of 
years, not less than sixteen, in which there were five 
administrations, and in which the public were pleased 
to give me their sentence of approbation. Sir, it in- 
cludes, for I wish to speak to facts, not to take it up 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 153 

upon epithet, — it includes the Duke of Bedford's, 
Lord Halifax's, the duke of Northumberland's, Lord 
Hertford's, and Lord Townsend's. 

Now, sir, as to the fact of intemperance, I will 
state to you how that stands, and let the gentleman see 
how a plain tale shall put him down. Of these five 
administrations, there u^ere three to which I was so 
far from giving an intemperate apposition^ that I could 
not be said, in any sense of the word, to oppose them 
at all; I mean the three first. I certainly voted against 
the secretary of the day, but oftener voted with him. In 
lord Hertford's administration I had attained to a 
certain view and decided opinion of what was fit, in 
my mind, to be done for this country. I had fixed 
upon three great objects of public utility. I endeavored 
to attain them with that spirit and energy with which 
it is my nature and character to speak and to act; as I 
must take the disadvantages of my nature, I will take 
the advantages of it too. These three great objects 
were resisted by that administration; what w^as the 
consequence.'^ a conflict arose between that administra- 
tion and me; but that conflict ought not to be called 
opposition on my part; no, it ought rather to be called 
opposition on theirs; I was the propounder, and they 
resisted my propositions. This may be called a con- 
flict, not an opposition to that administration. What 
were those three objects? One was to prove that the 
constitution of parliament in this kingdom did still 
exist; that it had not been taken away by the law of 
Poyning's; but that it was an infamous perversion of 
that statute by which the constitution had suffiered. ♦ 
The other w^as the establishment of a constitutional 



154 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

military force in superaddition to that of a standing 
army. 

The only idea that ever occurred to England, or 
any free country of Europe, I adopted, namely, that of 
a constitutional militia. At that time the idea of a 
volunteer force had not arisen, therefore, I adopted the 
idea which at that time appeared to be best. The 
third great object I took up as necessary to this coun- 
try, was a law for limiting the duration of parliaments: 
these were three great, salutary and noble objects, 
worthy of the enlarged mind of an enlarged country, 
I pursued them with ardor, I do not deny it; but I did 
not pursue them with intemperance; I am sure that I 
did not appear to the public to do so; they gave my 
exertions many flattering testimonies of their appro- 
bation. 

There is another proof that I was not intemperate; I 
was successful; intemperance and miscarriage are apt to 
go together, but temperance and success are associated 
by nature. This is my plain history with regard to 
that period. The clumsiness, or virulence of invec- 
tive may require to be sheathed in a brilliancy of 
diction, but plain truth and plain sense are best de- 
livered in plain terms. 

I now come to that period in which Lord Harcourt 
governed, and which is stigmatized by the word venal, 
I say, Lord Harcourt's, for, in my consideration of his 
administration, I will include that of lord Townsend. 
If every man who accepts office is venal, and an apos- 
tate, I certainly cannot acquit myself of the charge, 
nor is it necessary, I should have so many associates 
in the crime, if ever there w^as a crime in what multi- 



&c. 155 

tudes would defend. I am sensible, multitudes and 
majorities would not be wanting to defend that. But, 
I say either it is a crime or it is not; if it be a crime 
universally, let it be universally ascribed. But, sir, I say 
it is not fair that one set of men should be treated by 
that honorable member, as great friends and lovers of 
their country, notwithstanding they are in office; and 
another man, because he was in office, should be 
treated as an enemy and an apostate. But what is 
the truth? Every thing of this sort depends upon the 
principles on which office is taken, and on which it is 
retained: with regard to me, let no man imagine I am 
preaching up a doctrine for my own convenience; there 
is not a man less concerned in the propagation of it. 
I have no treaty with the right honorable gentleman on 
the floor, nor shall I have any. 

Now, sir, I shall beg leave shortly to state the man- 
ner in which I accepted that office, which I give you 
my word, I never will resume. It was offered to me 
in the most honorable manner, with an assurance of not 
only being a placeman for my own profit, but a min- 
ister for the benefit of my country. My answer was, 
that I thought, in a constitution such as ours, an inter- 
course between the prince and the subject ought to be 
honorable, that being a minister ought to redound to a 
man's credit: but I lamented that it often happened 
otherwise; men in office often gave up those principles 
which they maintained before. I told them, therefore, 
that my objections were not to the going into office, 
but to following the examples which I had sometimes 
seen before me. I mentioned the public principles 1 
held. I said, if consistently with those principles, 



156 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

from an atom of which I would not depart, I could 
be of service to his majesty's government, I was ready 
to be so. I speak in the presence of men who know 
what I say. After the olfice had come over and landed 
in this kingdom, I sent in writing to the chief governor 
that I would not accept it unless upon that principle. 

Thus, sir, I took office; the administration before I 
opposed only in part of it; in the first session of lord 
Townsend I did not oppose; I never opposed lord 
Townsend till after his prorogation and protest: this 
appeared to me an infamous violation of the privileges 
of parliament. With regard to money bills, and after 
that protest by which he endeavored to make the 
journals of the houses of lords, instead of being the 
record of their privileges, the monument of their dis- 
grace, I opposed him: now what did I oppose in that 
administration? The violation of th^ privilege of this 
house, with regard to money bills, and the wanton 
augmentation of offices, by the division of the board 
of commissioners into two parts. 

In lord Harcourt's administration what did I do? 1 
had the two boards of commissioners reduced again 
into one. I do not say my single voice effected this, 
but, as far as it had any efficacy, it insisted on having 
the twelve commissioners again reduced to seven, and 
the two boards to one — a saving, including the whole 
arrangement, of twenty thousand pounds a jear to the 
nation; it went further; it insisted to have every altered 
money bill thrown out, and privy council money bills 
not defended by the crown. Thus instead of giving 
ganction to the measures I had opposed, my conduct 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C, 15t 

was, in fact, to register my principles in the records 
of the court, to make the privy council a witness to 
the privileges of parliament, and to give final energy 
to the tenets with which I commenced- my life. 

Economy did not stop with the reduction of the 
commissioners' boards. The right honorable gentleman 
who has censured me, in order to depreciate that 
economy, said that '■'we had swept with the feather of 
economy, the pens and paper oft' your table;" a pointed 
and brilliant expression is far from being a firm argu- 
ment. This country has no reason to be ashamed of 
this species of economy when the great nation of Great 
Britain has been obliged to descend to an economy as 
minute. Neither sir, was this all; it is not my fault if 
infinitely more was not done for this country on that 
occasion: they were offered a saving; they did not 
choose to take it; they were offered the absentee tax, 
and they refused it. I am not to blame for that, it 
was part of the saving proposed. If administration 
were wrong on that occasion, they were wrong with 
the prejudices of half a century; they were wrong with 
every great writer that had ever written upon the sub- 
ject of Ireland; they were wrong, with some of the 
plainest principles, as it seems of human nature, in their 
favor. I will suppose the determination not to accept 
it to have been right, still it was meritorious in admin- 
istration to offer it; and to show that I was not under 
auy undue influence of office, 1 appeal to the memory 
of many men present, when the disposition of the 
house was made to alter upon that subject; and 
when administration yielded, not unwillingly, to the 
violence of parliament. I appeal to the conscious and 
14 



158 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

public knowledge of many, whether I did veer and 
turn about with the secretary, or whether I did not 
make a manly stand in favor of that principle after 
having pledged myself to the public? I would rather 
break with a million of administrations than retract. 

I not only adhered to it, but by a singular instance 
of exertion I forced it a second time under the consid- 
eration of this house. That this benefit was lost to 
this country, if it be a benefit, was not my fault. One 
thing I must go back to; I had repeatedly pressed 
the bill for limiting the duration of parliaments. In 
lord Townsend's time I brought it in finally, and 
crowned it with success; thus I restored, to the univer- 
sal community of Ireland, a right of which they had 
been robbed for nearly a century, namely, their first and 
fundamental franchise as electors, without which this 
house is but as a shadow, and thus after having res- 
tored that root of all their other rights, in lord Towns- 
end's administration, after having restored economy, 
and reduced twelve commissioners to seven in lord 
Harcourt's, I went on to the other great measures which 
I have mentioned, the militia law; and when a right 
honorable gentleman (Mr. Ogle) moved that question, 
I engaged all the interest I could with government in 
behalf of it. I rose up to second his motion, and de- 
clared that I would support him and his militia bill to 
the last; accordingly, I gave him the assistance of my 
poor labours, and it was carried. Thus, therefore, 
sir, I say that in that administration in which I accept- 
ed office, instead of relinquishing my principles, I 
preserved them; instead of getting a minority to vote 
for them, I brought the majority to give them an 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 15^ 

efficient sanction; by entering into office upon that oc- 
casion, and acting as I did, I actedthe part of an honest 
minister between the prince and the people; in doing 
so, I think, I was more a patriot than if, out of office, I 
had made empty declamations on empty subjects with- 
out any advantage to the public. Most of those who 
hear me can recollect the state of this kingdom at the 
close of lord Townsend^s administration; I appeal to 
them all, and I ask what was then my repute in the 
nation; I will not say it was the first, or the second, 
or the third: but did it not stand in an honorable rank, 
and among the foremost rather than among the last? 
In lord Harcourt's government the vice treasurership 
was offered to me, accompanied with every declara- 
tion that could render it acceptable to an honorable 
mind. When that office was offered to me, was my 
situation that of a reprobated man? I take the facts of 
both countries to disprove this calumny. Is it since 
that I have become a mark of obloquy? I flatter 
myself not. Lord Buckingham's administration suc- 
ceeded. With regard to lord Harcourt's administra- 
tion, the objection is I did too much; the charge with 
regard to the other is I did too little for it; these two 
accusations run a little in contrary direction, and like a 
double poison, each may cure the operation of the 
other: but the fact is this, I acted not upon visions and 
imaginations, but on sound common sense, the best gift 
of God to man; which then told one, and still whis- 
pers, that some administrations deserve a more active 
support than others; that some administrations deserve 
a more active opposition than others, and that some 
deserve little of either. I adapted my conduct to 



160 GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &Cr. 

those three conditions. I did not run headlong against 
government at one time, and with government at 
another, but adapted my conduct, as I ought to do, to 
what I saw and what I felt. Did I support lord Har- 
court? Why? Because he gave me an influence in his 
councils. 

It is nonsense to say a man is not to support his own 
councils; but the next administration took another di- 
rection, and they did not give me any influence on their 
councils. 

What was the consequence? I did not give them 
support. Was there any thing more fair? 1 felt myself 
a man of too much situation to be a mere placeman. 
If not a minister to serve my country, I would not be 
the tool of salary. What was the consequence? I voted 
with them in matters of importance when they were 
clearly rig:ht; I voted against them in matters of im- 
portance, when they were clearly wrong; and in mat- 
ters of small moment I did not vote at all; and why? 
I scorned, by voting for them in such matters to seem 
to pay court: to vote against them in such matters 
would have been absurd. What remained? Not to vote 
at all. If you call that absconding, going behind the 
ehair^or escaping into the corridor, call^ it what you 
please, I say it was right. This is my plain way of 
dealing, it is common sense. I told lord Buckingham- 
shire I would not attend the cabinet councils of the 
sage Mr. Heron. Was that duplicity? I think not. I 
did more; 1 sent my resignation to England, to the same 
friend through whom the first communication w^s 
made to me on the subject of office; but from ideas ol 



C^EMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCB, &C. 161 

friendship for me, he took time to consider, and at 
length declined to deliver my resignation. 

I have said something to the middle period. I shall 
come to the third, viz: lord Carlisle's administration, 
in which my conduct has been slandered as the con- 
duct of an incendiary; when that idea took place in 
some minds, I cannot tell, but this I am sure of, that 
the right honorable gentleman who censured me, was 
called an incendiary at that time, and so perhaps might I 
have been; but I am sure the right honorable gentleman 
did not, at that time, think me an incendiary any more 
than himself; there was not a single instance ia which 
he did not co-operate. If I be an incendiary, I shall 
gladly accept, therefore, of the society of that right 
honorable gentleman, under the same appellation: but 
he laughed at the folly of the accusation, at that time, 
and so do I now. If I were an incendiary it was for 
moving, what the parliaments of both kingdoms have 
since given their sanction to; if that is to be an incen- 
diary, God grant I may continue so. 

In this administration it was that I was dismissed 
from office; now, sir, I do not know that, in general, 
my dismission from office was thought any disgrace to 
me: I do not think this house or the nation thought me 
dishonored by that dismission. The first day I de- 
clared those sentiments for which I was disrhissed— 
/ remember it well— I thought it for my honor; some 
very honorable and worthy gentlemen, since dMd, ^nd 
some still alive, one of them whom I shall ever love 
and ever lament;*" one of them, dead since to every 

* The right honoraMe Walter Hursey Burgh. 
14* 



162 GEMS 0F IRIStt ELOatTEWCE, &C. 

thing but his own honor, and the grateful memory of 
his country; one of them who thought me so little of 
the character of an incendiary, that he crossed the 
house, together with others, to congratulate nie on the 
honor of my conduct and to embrace me in open par- 
liament. At that moment, I think, I stood clear of 
the character of an incendiary. The character of 
an incendiary seems, therefore, to have been superin- 
duced upon me of a sudden; it has sprouted out and 
germinated from that root of much evil, the simple re- 
peal: since that moment only, it seems that I have been 
going down in the opinion of the people; since that 
Hioment, they have found out my character and conduct 
to deserve all reprobation; and to deserve the brand 
of being an incendiary; and yet lean hardly prevail' 
on myself to think this is the case; because, since the^ 
momeat, I have received more honorable testimonies 
from every corner of the kingdom, than that right hon- 
orable member has received during the same period. 

I shall return once more to the sentiments of that 
beloved; cliaracter whom I have jiust described: he was 
a ma« over whose life, or over whose grave envy 
never hovers; he was a man, wishing ardently to serve 
his country himself, but not wishing to monopolize the 
service, wishing to partake and to communicate the 
glory of what passed; he gave me, in his motion for a 
free trade, a full participation of the honor. Upon 
another occasion he said, — I remember the words; they 
arc traced with the pencil of gratitude on my heart — he 
wid, *Hhat I was a man whom the most lucrative oflBce 
in the land had never warped in point of integrity.'' 
The words w^ere marked; I am sure I repeat them 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUEKCE, &;G. 163 

fairly; they are words I should be proud 1o have in- 
scribed upon my tomb. Consider the man from whom 
th^y came; consider the magnitude of the subject upon 
, which they were spoken; consider the situation of the 
persons concerned, and it adds to, and multiplies the 
honor. 

My ngble friend, I beg pardon, he did not live to 
be ennobled by patent, but he was born ennobled by 
nature: his situation at that moment was this: he had 
found himself obliged to surrender office, and enter 
into active opposition t^ that government from whom 
he had received it. I remained in office, though under 
the circumstance of having sent my resignation; that 
he did not know: in political position, therefore, we 
were contradistinguished to each other; he did not 
know while he was doing justice to me, but that he 
might be doing political detriment to himself; he did 
not know but he might serve the administration he op- 
posed; but careless of any thing except justice and 
honor, he gave the sentiments of his heart, and he 
approved. I have mentioned, sir,^ that short periodi, 
during which the character of an incendiary, if at all 
applicable to me, must have come upon me in the 
night and have taken me unawares. 

I cannot think the ©pinion of the public so transform- 
ed, when I see every corner of the country expressing 
their approbation of my conduct^ one after another, great 
and respectable societies of men, compared with whose 
sentiments, the oMoquy of an. individual sinks into 
nothing. Even this very day, I have received from 
the united delegates of the province o^ Connaught, aa 
approbation, with one voice, as they term it, of that 



164 GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

conduct which has been slandered as that of an incen- 
diary. Here is a congregation of men, not one of 
whom I have ever seen; to none of whom I have ever 
a chance of doing a service; who could have nothing 
in contemplation but the doing an act of justice. Sir, 
I may say, I had the same sanction from another pro- 
vince, that of Ulster. But it seems I went to Belfast 
in the character of an incendiary: I went to Dungannon 
in the character of an incendiary. Now, I went to 
neither of these places but by an invitation; and if a 
person invited be an incendiary, what must be those 
that give the invitation? If I be an incendiary all 
Ulster is an incendiary; if I be an incendiary all Con- 
naught is an incendiary; with two provinces therefore, 
at my back, and with the parliament of England behind 
me, in then having coincided honorably and nobly in 
that sentiment, which I sustained, I think I am not much 
afraid of any single and solitary accusation. But I 
have not only the parliaments of both kingdoms — I 
have the judicial power in my favor. If my doctrine 
was not right, Lord Mansfield's conduct was not right. 
I ask you, was he wrong? It has been said that he was 
the enemy of both countries on that occasion. But 
has the accusation been proved? Lord Mansfield ha9 
many political enemies. The administration at that 
time would have been glad to have proved him an 
enemy to both countries; yet was there a man in the 
parliament of England, the greatest enemy to that no- 
ble judge, who attempted to find fault with his conduct. 
After having mentioned the judicial power, let me 
come to a highly respectable body, the corps of 
lawyers in this country, who, after six months' medi- 



6BM3 OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &e. 165 

tation by a committee chosen by ballot, gave their 
sanction to that opinion, which is the opinion of an 
incendiary, if I deserve that name. If lord Mansfield 
be an incendiary^ if the parliament of England be an 
incendiary, if the corps of lawyers are incendiaries, 
if the Ulster delegates are incendiaries, and all the so- 
cieties who have joined that opinion throughout the 
kingdom; if all of these be incendiaries^ in the name of 
God let me be added to the number, and let me be an 
incendiary too; but though I may be such an incendi- 
ary, I never will be that which would deserve the 
name; I will never, by any hollow composition, lay 
the seeds of future dissension; I will go clearly and 
fully to the work: I will be satisfied when satisfaction 
is given: my nature is as prone to satisfaction, and as 
distant from chagrin as that of any man. I appeal to 
those who know me from my childhood; first, at a 
public school, then at the university of this kingdom, 
then at the university of Oxford, and afterwards, during 
twenty-four years, taking no very private part within 
the walls of this house. I have spol^en to facts. I do 
not mean to arraign; any man may be mistaken, and I 
wish to suppose any man to be really mistaken, rather 
than to be so intentionally. I would rather reconcile all 
men to the public, than make unnecessary divisions. 
But though I would do every thing a man can do to 
prevent dissension, I cannot be expected to sacrifice 
my character to unlimited obloquy. 

Sir, one circumstance I must mention, as it is 
somewhat extraordinary. It has been said by some 
authority on that side of the question, that I am the 
outcast of governnient and of my prince; certainly, sir, 



166 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

my dismission from office was attended with the extra- 
ordinary circumstance of my dismission from council; 
therefore, I suppose, it is that the right honorable gen- 
tleman has called me the outcast of government and of 
my prince. It certainly, sir, was an extraordinary 
transaction; but it was done in the case of Mr. Pul- 
teney, it was done in the case of the duke of Devon- 
shire; therefore, I suppose, it will not be a decided 
proof of any reprobated or factious character in the , 
person to whom it happened. It is the first time it has 
been mentioned to my disadvantage. It was in the 
house of lords of England, mentioned to the disadvan- 
tage of the minister who was supposed to have done 
it by a most respectable character; it was thought not 
to my dishonor here; it was thought not to my dis- 
honor in the house of lords of Ireland, where I have 
lately received from a very eminent peer, the sanction 
of sentiments very different from these. In a word it 
is but the sentence of one tongue, and upon that tongue 
I leave it. I do not, however, pretend to dispute a 
ministerial fact, which a gentleman in confidence al- 
leges. He has been in the confidence of the duke of 
Portland; he is as much a minister as any man who is 
not in office. 

Thus much T must give to this ministerial assertion, 
that I shall find it impossible for me, under such an 
interdict, to pay my respects at his majesty's castle of 
Dublin, which otherwise I should be prompt to dis- 
charge; and I mention it thus publicly, that my absence 
may not be interpreted into any want of the most per- 
fect duty and loyalty to my prince, or of the greatest 
respect to the nobleman who presides there. I am not 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 167 

a man formed to court proscription; I will not seek 
disgrace; let it remain in its den; I will not invoke it. 
Sir, I have trespassed too long, and I am oppressed 
with the weight and multitude of thanks which I owe 
you and the house; I have^ troubled you too long upon 
a private subject, but with your permission, I will en- 
deavor to make amends on the next day, by bringing 
before you a subject of more importance,-;— the econo- 
my of the nation. I beg pardon for what I have said; 
I have promised too much; I am in your judgment 
whether I shall do it. You have heard what has passed 
upon my subject; I appeal to you if I am that character 
which has been drawn; if I be that character in any 
degree, I do not deprecate your justice; but I call for it, 
and exhort you, for yourselves and your country, to 
get rid of a member who would be unworthy to sit 
amongst you. 



MR. GRATTAN. 



THE APOSTLES. 

FROM THE SPEECH ON TITHES, FEBRUARY 14, 1788> 

Had the apostles advanced, among the Jews, preten- 
sions to the tenth of the produce of Judea, they wouI4 
not have converted a less perverse generation; but they 
were humble and inspired men; they v^^ent forth in 
simple guise, with naked foot, and brought to every 
man's door, in his own tongue, the true faith; their 
word prevailed against the potentates of the earth, and 
o'er the ruins of Barbaric pride, and pontific luxury, 
they placed the naked majesty of the christian religion. 

MR. GRATTAN. 



THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

FROM THE SAME SPEECH. 

I HAVE, in the foregoing part, endeavored to defend 
myself against an attack, published without the names 
of certain dignitaries of the church, but not without 
their authority. I shall now strive to answer another 
attack, published by their authority, and with their 
names annexed — the parochial clergy of Munster, at 
their annual visitations assembled. 

A very respectable assembly; how employed.? To 
assist the committee appointed by act of parliament to 



GEiaS OF IRISH ELOaUENGE, &C. 169 

enquire into the scandalous abuses which have sunk 
the charitable funds of royal and private donation? 
No, from the southern archbishop that committee has 
received no assistance. To establish parochial schools 
according to act of parliament, at their own expense? 
No, that work has been neglected. To establish 
diocesan schools as by law they are obliged? No! 
that too has been neglected or perverted. To enquire 
into the state of charter schools, and to follow Howard 
in his pious and singular activity? No: the parochial 
clergy of the province of Munster, at their visitation 
have been otherwise employed. They have read a 
speech concerning their tithes, and yet there were 
subjects more worthy of their interference! Their 
God has been denied by the arguments of the atheist; 
his Son has been denied by the arguments of the deists. 
English bishops, Presbyterian ministers, have come 
forth; the parochial clergy of Munster and their six 
bishops: have they signalized themselves in this holy 
war? Their learning, their industry, their zeal, on 
their natural subject I look for. I cannot find them. 
Their country as well as their God had been outraged; 
her trade crippled, her constitution destroyed, and her 
final judicature, of which the right reverend, the lords 
spiritual, compose an implicit part, usurped. What an 
opportunity here for their interposition, during a long 
period! Where are their spirited votes! Where are 
their deep researches! A layman, indeed, on that oc- 
casion came forth, and though he could not retake the 
citadel, he rescued the holy vestiges, the vestal fires of 
the constitution, and rescued them without aid from 
the dignified priests of the temple. A most successful 
15 



170 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

struggle, to recover trade and freedom was afterwards 
made; what an opportunity here! The Presbyterian 
ministers came forward in every shape; the Roman 
Catholic priest afforded us his literary assistance; the 
parochial clergy of Munster, our clergy, our bishops, 
not one syllable. On their part a sad, blank, profound, 
uninterrupted taciturnity! When their God, their re- 
deemer and their country are in question, ihey are 
silent; but when a twelve-penny point of their tithe is 
brought forward, then they are vivacious; then the 
press storms wnth a clerical fury; then a loquacious 
synod is held in the capitol, in the seat of learning, 
under mitred auspices, training up the reverend youth 
of the country, in the office of anonymous publication, 
and inoculating their tender minds with the scribbling 
itch of meagre production; and then, the parochial 
clergy of Munster, deans, deacons, arch-deacons, pre- 
bendaries and precentors, with six bishops in holy 
order, and solemn march advance — for what? To 
commit a breach of privilege, to abuse an individual: 
"the provincial clergy having read a speech, entitled 
by the publishers, the speech of Mr. Grattan, and by 
him not disavowed.*" 



MR. G RAT TAN 



TROM THE SPEECH ON THE SALE OF PEERAGES, AND THE PUR- 
CHASE OF SEATS IN PARLIAMENT, FEB. 20, 1790. 



We come liere to arraign the ministers of the crown. 
1 will read the charges which I make against tliem. 
We charge them publicly, in the face of their countiy , 
with making corrupt agreements for the sale of 
peerages; for doing which we say that they are im- 
peachable. We charge them with corrupt agreements 
for the disposal of the money arising from the sale, to 
purchase for the servants of the castle, seats in the 
assembly of the people; for doing which we say they 
are impeachable; guilty of a systematic endeavor to 
undermine the constitution, in violation of the laws of 
the land. 

We pledge ourselves to convict them: we dare them 
to go into an enquiry; we do not affect to treat them 
other than as public malefactors; w^e speak to ihem in 
a style of the most mortifying and humiliating defiance. 
We pronounce them to be public criminals! will they 
dare to deny the charge.^ I call upon, and dare tlie 
ostensible member to rise in his place, and say on his 
honor that he does not believe such corrupt agreements 
to have taken place. I wait for a specific answer. 



MR. G RATTAN 



FROM THE SPEECH ON THE MOTION TO REJECT THE CATHOLIC 
PETITION, FEBRUARY 20, 1792. 



The part of the subject which I shall now press upon 
you, is the final and eternal doom to which some gen- 
tlemen propose to condemn the Catholic. Some have 
said that they must never get the elective franchise. 
What! never be free! three millions of people, con- 
demned by their fellow subjects to an everlasting sla- 
very, in all change of time, decay of prejudice, in- 
crease of knowledge, the fall of papal power, and the 
establishment of philosophic and moral ascendancy in 
its place. Never be free! Do you mean to tell the 
Roman Catholic, it is in vain you take oaths and de- 
clarations of allegiance; it would be in vain even to 
renounce the spiritual power of the Pope, and become 
like any other dissenter? It will make no difference 
as to your emancipation. Go to France, go to Amer- 
ica; carry your property, your industry and manufac- 
tures to a land of liberty: this is a sentence which 
requires the power of a God, and the malignity of a 
demon: you are not competent to pronounce it: be- 
lieve me, you may as weW plant your foot upon the 
earth, and hope by that resistance, to stop the diurnal 
revolution, which advances you to that morning sun, 
which is to shine alike on the Protestant and the Cath- 
olic, as you can hope to arrest the progress of that 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 173 

Other light, reason and justice, which approach to 
liberate the Catholic, and to liberalize the Protest- 
ant. Even now the question is on its way, and 
making its destined and irresistible progress, which 
you, with all your authority, will have no power to 
resist; no more than any other great truth, or any great 
ordinance of nature, or any law of motion which man- 
kind is free to contemplate, but cannot resist. There 
is a justice linked to their cause and a truth that sets 
off their application. 



MR. GRATTAN. 



CHARACTER OF FOX. 

FROM THE SPEECH OF MAY 3, 1797. 

The learned doctor (Dueguienan) inveighs against 
such a character. Should you wish to measure the 
abilities of such a statesman, measure them by the 
gigantic proportions of the calamities he would have 
prevented; by the American empire which his advice 
would have preserved; by the £250,000,000 of debt, 
the consequence of two wars, which his advice would 
have saved. He stood against the current of the court; 
he stood against the tide of the people; he stood against 
both united; he was the isthmus lashed by the waves 
of democracy, and by the torrent of despotism, unaf- 
fected by either, and superior to both; (the Marpesian 
rock that struck its base to the centre and raised its 
forehead to the skies.) 
15* 



MR. GRATTAN. 



LORD CHARLEMONT. 



FROM THE SPEECH ON THE "SPEECH FROM THE THRONE,' 
JANUARY 19, 1792; 



We see your old general who led you to your consti- 
tution, march off; di&missed by your ministry as unfit 
to be trusted with the government of a county; the 
cockade of government struck from his hat. That man 
whose accomplishments gave a grace to your cause, 
and whose patriotism gave a credit to your nobles; 
whom the rabble itself could not see without venera- 
tion, as if they beheld something not only good but 
sacred. The man who drooping and faint, when you 
began your struggles, forgot his infirmity, and found in 
the recovery of your constitution, a vital principle added 
to his own. The man who smit with the eternal love 
of fame and freedom, carried the people's standard till 
he placed it on the citadel of freedom, see him dis- 
missed from his government for those very virtues, 
and by that very ministry, for whose continuance you 
are to thank th^ king. See him overwhelmed at 
once with the adoration of his country and the displea- 
sure of her ministers. 



MR. GRATTAN, 

IN REPLY TO MR. CORRY, FEBRUARY 14, 1800. 

During the debate upon the union the chancellor of 
the exchequer (Mr. Carry) replied to Mr. GrattaUjand 
making quotations from his phamphlet, and animad- 
verting upon his speeches and writings charged him 
through those means with, exciting the rebellion. He 
concluded a violent personal atttack by alleging against 
him an association with disaffected characters. 



Has the gentleman done.^ Has he completely done.^ 
He was unparliamentary from the beginning to the end 
of his speech. There was scarcely a word he uttered 
which was not a violation of the privileges of the 
house; but I did not call him to order — why.^ because 
the limited talents of some men render it impossible 
for them to be severe, without being unparliamentary. 
But before I s^t down, I shall show him how to be 
severe and parliamentary at the same time. On any 
other occasion I should think myself justifiable in 
treating with silent contempt any thing which might 
fall from that honorable member;: but there are times 
when the insignificance of the accuser is lost in the 
magnitude of the accusation. I know the difficulty the 
honorable gentleman labored under when he attacked 
me, and conscious that on a comparative view of oue 



176 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

characters, public and private, there is nothing he 
could say which would injure me, the public would 
not believe the charge. I despise the falsehood. If 
such a charge were made by an honest man I would 
answer it, in the manner I shall do before I sj^t down. 
But I shall first reply to it when not made by an honest 
man. 

The right honorable gentleman has called me "an 
unimpeached traitor." I ask, why not "traitor," un- 
qualified by any epithet? I will tell him. It was be- 
cause he dare not. It was the act of a coward, who 
raises his arm to strike, but has not courage to give 
the blow. I will not call him villain, because it would 
be unparliamentary, and he is a privy counsellor. I 
will not call him fool because he happens to be chan- 
cellor of the exchequer. But I say he is one who 
abused the privilege of parliament and freedom of de- 
bate, to the uttering of language, which, if spoken out 
of the house, I should only answer with a blow. I 
care not how high his situation, how low his character, 
how contemptible his speech, whether a privy counsel- 
lor, or a parasite, my answer would be a blow. He 
has charged me with being connected with the rebels; 
the charge is utterly, totally, and meanly false. Does 
the honorable gentleman rely on the report of the 
house of lords, for the foundation of his assertion? If 
he does I can prove to the committee there was a 
physical impossibility of that report being true. But 
I scorn to answer to any man for my conduct, whether 
he be a political coxcomb, or whether he brought him- 
self into power by a false glare of courage or not. 1 
scorn to answer any wizard of the castle, throwing 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 177 

himself into fantastical airs. But if an honorable and 
independent man were to make a charge against me, I 
would say, ''you charge me with having an intercourse 
with rebels, and you found your charge upon what is 
said to have appeared before a committee of the lords; 
sir, the report of that committee is totally and egregi- 
ously irregular." I will read a letter from Mr. Nelson 
who had been examined before that committee: it 
states that what the report represents him as having 
spoken, is not what he said, Mr. Grattan here read 
the letter from Mr. Nelson, denying that he had any 
connection with Mr. Grattan, as charged in the report; 
and concluding by saying ^hiever was misrepresentation 
more vile than that put into my mouth by the report,''^ 

From the situation that I held, and from the con- 
nections I had in the city of Dublin, it was necessary 
for me to hold intercourse with various descriptions of 
persons. The right honorable gentleman might as 
well have been charged with a participation in the 
guilt of these traitors, for he had communicated with 
some of these very persons on the subject of parlia- 
mentary reform. The Irish government too were in 
communication with some of them. 

The right honorable member has told me I deserted 
a profession w^here wealth and station were the re- 
ward of industry and talent. If I mistake not, the 
gentleman endeavored to obtain those rewards by the 
same means; but he soon deserted the occupation of a 
barrister for that of a parasite and pander. He fled 
from the labor of study to flatter at the table of the 
great. He found the lord's parlor a better sphere for 
his exertions, than th^ halls of the four courts; the 



178 GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

house of a great man a more convenient way to power 
and to place; and that it was easier for a statesman of 
middling talents to sell his friends than a lawyer of no 
talents to sell his clients. 

For myself, whatever corporate or other bodies 
have said or done to me, I from the bottom of my 
heart forgive them, I feel I have done too much for 
my country to be vexed at them. I would rather that 
they should not feel, or acknowledge what I have done 
for them, and call me traitor, than have reason to say I 
sold them. I will always defend myself against the 
assassin; but with large bodies it is different. To the 
people I will bow; they may be my enemy — I never 
shall be theirs. 

At the emancipation of Ireland, in 1782, I took a 
leading part in the foundation of that constitution 
which is now endeavored to be destroyed. Of that 
constitution I was the author; in that constitution I 
glory; and for it the honorable gentleman should bestow 
praise, not invent calumny. Notwithstanding my 
weak state of body, I come to give my last testimony 
against this union, so fatal to the liberties and interests 
of my country. I come to make common cause with 
these honorable and virtuous gentlemen around me; to 
try to save the constitution; or if not to save the con- 
stitution, at least to save our characters, and remove 
from our graves the foul disgrace of standing apart 
while a deadly blow is aimed at the independence of 
our country. 

The right honorable gentleman says I fled from the 
country after exciting rebellion; and that I have re- 
turned to raise another. No such thing. The charge 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 179 

is false. The civil war had not commenced when I 
left the kingdom, and I could not have returned with- 
out taking part. On the one side there was the camp 
of the rebel, on the other side the camp of the minister, 
a greater traitor than that rebel. The strong hold of 
the constitution was no where to be found. I agree 
that the rebel who rises against the government should 
have suffered; but I missed, on the scaffold, the right 
honorable gentleman. Two desperate parties were in 
arms against the constitution. The right honorable 
gentleman belonged to one of these parties, and de- 
served death. I could not join the rebel — I could not 
join the government — I could not join torture — I could 
not join half-hanging — I could not join free quarter. I 
could take part with neither. I was therefore absent 
from a scene, where I could not be active without self 
reproach, nor indifferent with safety. 

Many honorable gentlemen thought differently from 
me; I respect their opinions — but I keep my own; and 
I think now, as I thought then, that the treason of the 
minister against the liberties of the people was infinitely 
worse than the rebellion of the people against the minister, 

I have returned, not as the right honorable member 
has said, to raise another storm; — I have returned to 
discharge an honorable debt of gratitude to my coun- 
try, that conferred a great reward for past services; 
which, I am proud to say, was not greater than my 
desert. I have returned to protect that constitution, 
of which I was the parent and the founder, from the 
assassination of such men as the right honorable gentle- 
man and his unworthy associates. They are corrupt, — 
they are seditious, — and they, at this very moment, 



180 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

are in a conspiracy against their country. I have 
returned to refute a libel, as false as it is malicious, 
given to the public under the appellation of a report 
of a committee of the lords. Here I stand, ready for 
impeachment or trial: I dam accusation. I defy the 
honorable gentleman; I defy the government; I defy 
their whole phalanx: let them come forth. I tell the 
ministers I will neither give them quarter nor take it. 
I am here to lay the shattered remains of my consti- 
tution on the floor of this house, in defence of the 
liberties of my country. 



MR. GRATTAN. 



THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 

FROM THE SPEECH OF MAY 13, 1S05, ON THE ROMAN CATHOLie 
PETITION. 

The Parliament of Ireland — of that assembly I have 
a parental recollection. I sat. by her cradle, I followed 
her hearse. In fourteen years she acquired for Ireland 
what you did not acquire for England in a century^ — 
freedom of trade, independency of the legislature, in- 
dependency of the judges, restoration of the final 
judicature, repeal of a perpetual mutiny bill, habeas 
corpus act, nullum tempus act — a great work. 



MR. PLUNKET 



ON THE COMPETENCY OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT TO PASS 
THE MEASURE OF UNION. 



Sir : 

I, in the most express terms, deny the compe- 
tency of parliament to do this act. I warn you, do 
not dare to lay your hand on the constitution. I tell 
you, that if, circumstanced as you are, you pass this 
act, it will be a nullity, and that no man in Ireland will 
be bound to obey it. I make the assertion deliberate- 
ly — I repeat it, and I call on any man who hears me, 
to take down my words; you have not been elected 
for this purpose — you are appointed to make laws and 
not legislatures — you are appointed to act under the 
constitution, not to alter it — you are appointed to ex- 
ercise the functions of legislators, and not to transfer 
them — and if you do so your act is a dissolution of 
the government — you resolve society into its original 
elements, and no man in the land is bound to obey you. 
Sir, I state doctrines which are not merely founded in 
the immutable laws of justice and of truth. I state 
not merely the opinions of the ablest men who have 
written on the science of government, but I state the 
practice of our constitution as settled at the era of the 
revolution, and I state the doctrine under which the 
house of Hanover derives its title to the throne. Has 
the king a right to transfer his crown? Is he compe- 
16 



182 GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

tent to annex it to the crown of Spain or any other 
country? No — but he may abdicate it; and every man 
who knows the constitution knows the consequence, 
the right reverts to the next in succession — if they all 
abdicate, it reverts to the people. The man who 
questions this doctrine, in the same breath, must arraign 
the sovereign on the throne as a usurper. Are you 
competent to transfer your legislative rights to the 
French council of five hundred? Are you competent 
to transfer them to the British parliament? I answer 
no. When you transfer you abdicate, and the great 
original trust results to the people from whom it 
issued. Yourselves you may extinguish, but parlia- 
ment you cannot extinguish — it is enthroned in the 
hearts of the people — it is enshrined in the sanctuary 
of the constitution — it is immortal as the island which 
it protects — as well might the frantic suicide hope that 
the act which destroys his miserable body should ex- 
tinguish his eternal soul. Again, I therefore warn 
you, do not dare to lay your hands on the constitution; 
it is above your power. Sir, I do not say that the 
parliament and the people, by mutual consent and co- 
operation, may not change the form of the constitution. 
Whenever such a case arises it must be decided on its 
own merits — but that is not this case. If government 
considers this a season peculiarly fitted for experi- 
ments on the constitution, they may call on the people. 
I ask you, are you ready to do so? Are you ready to 
abide the event of such an appeal? What is it you 
must, in that event, submit to the people? Not this 
particular project, for if you dissolve the present form 
of government, they become free to choose any other — 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 183 

you fling Ihem to the fury of the tempest — you must 
call on them to unhouse themselves of the established 
constitution, and to fashion to themselves another. I 
ask again, is this the time for an experiment of that 
nature? Thank God, the people have manifested no 
such wish — so far as they have spoken, their voice is 
decidedly against this daring innovation. You know 
that no voice has been uttered in its favor, and you 
cannot be infatuated enough to take confidence from 
the silence which prevails in some parts of the king- 
dom — if you know how to appreciate that silence it is 
more formidable than the most clamorous opposition — 
you may be riven and shivered by the lightning before 
you hear the peal of the thunder! But, sir, we are 
told that we should discuss this question with calmness 
and composure. I am called on to surrender my birth- 
right and my honor, and I am told that I should 
be calm and composed. National pride! Indepen- 
dence of our country! These, we are told by the 
minister, are only vulgar topics fitted but for the me- 
ridian of the mob, but unworthy to be mentioned to 
such an enlightened assembly as this; they are trinkets 
and gewgaws fit to catch the fancy of childish and 
unthinking people like you, sir, or like your predeces- 
sor in that chair, but utterly unworthy of the considera- 
tion of this house, or of the matured understanding of 
the noble lord who condescends to instruct it! Gra- 
cious God! We see a Perry re-ascending from the 
tomb and raising his awful voice to warn us against the 
surrender of our freedom, and we see that the proud 
and virtuous feelings which w^arm the breast of that 
aged and venerable man, are only calculated to excite 



184 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

the contempt of this young philosopher, who has heen 
transplanted from the nursery to the cabinet to outrage 
the feelings and understanding of the country. 



MR. PLUNKET. 



DENUNCIATION AGAINST THE MEN AND MEANS BY WHICH. TH]^ 
UNION WAS PERPETRATED. 

Let me again ask you, how was the rebellion of 1798 
put down? By the zeal and loyalty of the gentlemen 
of Ireland rallying round — what? a reed shaken by the 
winds, a wretched apology for a minister who neither 
knew how to give or where to seek protection! No — 
but round the laws and constitution and independence 
of the country. What were the affections and mo- 
tives that called us into action? To protect our fami- 
lies, our properties, and our liberties. What were the 
antipathies by which we were excited? Our abhor- 
rence of French principles aad French ambition? 
What was it to us that France was a republic? I 
rather rejoiced when I saw the ancient despotism of 
France put down. What was it to us that she de- 
throned her monarch? I admired the virtues and wept 
for the sufferings of the man, but as a nation it affected 
us not. The reason I took up arms, and am ready still 
to bear them against France, is because she intruded 
herself upon our domestic concerns — because, with the 
rights of man and the love of freedom on her tongue, 
I see that she has the lust of dominion in her heart-^- 
because wherever she has placed her foot, she has 
erected her throne, and that to be her friend or her 



1&EMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C, 185 

ally is to be her tributary or her slave. Let me ask, 
is the present conduct of the British minister calculated 
to augment or to transfer that antipathy? No, sir, I 
will be bold to say, that licentious and impious France 
in all the unrestrained excesses which anarchy and 
atheism have given birth to, has not committed a more 
insidious act against her enemy than is now attempted 
by her professed champion of civilized Europe against 
a friend and an ally in the hour of her calamity and dis- 
tress — at a moment when our country is filled with 
British troops — when the loyal men of Ireland are fa- 
tigued with their exertions to put down rebellion — 
efforts in which they had succeeded before these 
troops arrived — whilst our habeas corpus act is sus- 
pended — whilst trials by court martial are carrying on 
in many parts of the kingdom — whilst the people are 
taught to think that they have no right to meet or to 
deliberate, and whilst the great body of them are so 
palsied by their fears, and worn down by their exer- 
tions, that even the vital question is scarcely able to 
rouse them from their lethargy — at the moment when 
we are distracted by domestic dissensions — dissensions 
artfully kept alive as the pretext for our present subju- 
gation and the instrument of our future thraldom!! 
Sir, I thank administration for this measure. They are, 
without intending it, putting an end to our dissensions — 
through this black cloud which they have collected 
over us, I see the light breaking in upon this infortu- 
nate country. They have composed our dissensions — 
not by fomenting the embers of a lingering and sub- 
dued rebellion — not by hallooing the Protestant against 
the Catholic, and the Catholic against the Protestant — 
not by committing the north against the south — not by 
16* 



186 GBMs OF mnn ELoauENCE, &c. ' 

inconsistent appeals to local or to party prejudices — 
no — but by the avowal of this atrocious conspiracy 
against the liberties of Ireland, they have sul dued 
every petty and subordinate distinction. They have 
united every rank and description of men by the pres- 
sure of this grand and niomentous subject, and I tell 
them that they will see every honest and independent 
man in Ireland rally round her constitution and merge 
every other consideration in his opposition to this un- 
generous and odious measure. For my own part, I 
will resist it to the last gasp of my existence, and 
•with the last drop of my blood, and when I feel the 
hour of my dissolution approaching, I will, like the 
father of Hannibal, take my children to the altar and 
swear them to eternal hostility against the invaders of 
their country's freedom. Sir, I shall not detain you 
by pursuing this question through the topics w^hich it 
so abundantly offers. I should be proud to think my 
name might be handed down to posterity in the same 
roll with these disinterested patriots who have suc- 
cessfully resisted the enemies of their country — suc- 
cessfully I trust it will be — in all events I have my 
"exceeding great rew^ard." I shall bear in my heart 
the consciousness of having done my duty, and in the 
hour of death I shall not be haunted by the reflection 
of having basely sold or meanly abandoned the liber- 
ties of my native land. Can every man who gives his 
vote on the other side, this night lay his hand upon his 
heart and make the same declaration? / hope so — it 
will be well for his own peace — the indignation and 
abhorrence of his countrymen will not accompany him 
through life, and the curses of his children will not 
follow him to b.is grave. 



MR. PLUNKET. 



COMPARISON BETWEEN MR. PITT AND LORD CASTLEREAGH. 



The example of the prime minister of England, inim- 
itable in its vices, may deceive the noble lord. The 
minister of England has his faults; he abandoned in his 
latter years the principles of reform, by professing 
which he had obtained the early confidence of the peo- 
ple of England, and in the whole of his political con- 
duct he has shown himself haughty and intractable; but 
it must be admitted that he has shown himself by nature 
•endowed with a towering and transcendant intellect, 
and that the vastness of his moral resources keeps pace 
with the magnificence and unboundedness of his pro- 
jects. I thank God, that it is much more easy for him 
to transfer his apostacy and his insolence, than his 
comprehension and sagacity; and I feel the safety of 
my country in the wretched feebleness of her enemy. 
I cannot fear that the constitution which has been formed 
by the wisdom of sages, and cemented by the blood of 
patriots and of heroes, is to be smitten to its centre by 
such a green and limber twig as this* 



MR. BURROWES 



SPEECH ON THE TRIAL OF ROBINSON FOR BIGAMT. 

My lords and gentlemen of the Jury: — It falls to my 
lot, very much by me regretted, to stale to you a case 
as pregnant with circumstances of human wo, as 
strongly appealing to the feelings of humanity as ever 
appeared in a court of justice. The prisoner at the 
bar stands indicted for a crime too often committed 
and seldom prosecuted in this country, a crime which, 
I think you wHl agree with me, stands pre-eminently 
high in the scale of offences — a crime at once preying 
upon the best interest of society, and annihilating the 
happiness of the individual who chances to be its vic- 
tim. I shall not misrepresent or aggravate this trans- 
gression. It is impossible to doubt your anxiety, gen- 
tlemen, if a proper case for your verdict should arise, 
to prevent, by punishment, the repetition of such an 
offence, and administer the only possible consolation 
to the agonized feelings of an injured family. I shall 
proceed briefly to state to you the facts of this case. 
On a luckless morning, in the month of July, 1810, 
the prisoner at the bar rapped at the door of Mr. 
Charles Berry, an eminent attorney, resident on Arran 
Quay, in this city. He was admitted to a conference, 
and a long and fatal conference. — Mr. Berry never had 
known him, never had seen him — never heard that such 
a man was in existence; — his appearance was wretched 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 189 

and squalid to a degree of extremity, carrying the 
marks, the legible marks of misfortune and affliction. 
His debilitated frame and haggard looks at once re- 
commended him to the sympathy of Mr. Berry. This 
sympathy was kept alive and augmented by introduc- 
tory letters which this man carried with him, and by a 
sad and instructive tale of folly and misfortune, which 
was communicated to Mr. Berry in the most impressive 
manner by this forlorn stranger, and which was in 
many parts corroborated by letters from persons in 
whom Mr. Berry could confide. From these sources 
Mr. Berry was informed that he had once been high 
in fortune's favor, that he was the favoiite and adopted 
nephew of general Robinson who died in the year 
1793; — that whilst almost a boy, he was treated with 
the most lavish and improvident indulgence, placed 
under masters to be taught what is called accomplish- 
ments — that he had been allowed for his expenditure 
£500 per annum — that his uncle, on his death, be- 
queathed him as large a legacy as £100,000 vested in 
the English funds. He of course concluded that his 
wealth was inexhaustible, and he became as lavish and 
dissolute as the most prodigal man of the day. He pur- 
chased into the cavalry, and what with his credit and 
the unkind accommodation of friendly loans, he was 
in a short time, and whilst under age, enabled to waste 
£20,000 of his fortune— that at length in 1800 an un- 
lucky wind wafted him to this country— -that he was 
quartered at Clonmel in the county of Tipperary in 
that year, and shortly after became acquainted with 
the family of Mr. Stony of Arran Hill. Gentlemen, 
when I am relating facts as to that family, I am telling 



190 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

you what he told Mr. Berry, for the truth of which 1 
do not vouch. I would not hazard the doing so, for I 
know the origin from which the communication came. 
He told Mr. Berry that Mr. Stoney had advised him 
to quit the army: that he did so; that Mr. Stoney gave 
him a hospitable invitation to enjoy the pleasures of the 
chase at his country mansion — that he accepted the in- 
vitation, and was treated with kindness and hospitality, 
that he enjoyed the sports of the field abroad, and the 
pleasures of the drawing-room at home. That Mr. 
Stoney's eldest daughter was strongly recommended 
by her personal charms, and that Mr. Robinson though 
still a minor, was not insensible to their influence, and 
that a mutual attachment was the consequence. He 
told Mr. Berry that Mr. Stoney encouraged his ad- 
dresses; that he did not throw any impediment in the 
way on the ground of his minority — that he did not 
suggest any prudential recommendation to wait one 
year till he should arrive at age — that, on the con- 
trary, he suggested and supplied means of immediate 
marriage, and prepared the parties with accommoda- 
tions for Scotland. On their way to Scotland, in Dublin 
they stopped at the house of a professional gentleman 
who had been married to a daughter of Mr. Stoney. 
There it was managed that he should execute a most 
liberal marriage settlement, amounting to £20,000. 
And it was thought right also that Mr. Barry (Mr. Sto- 
ney's son-in-law) should retain a further sum of £4,000 
for purposes not then defined. At this time it was that 
the prisoner got acquainted with Mr. Vigne, the jew- 
eller; they then set off for Scotland and arrived as 
rapidly as could be expected from the nature of the 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUEKCE, &a 191 

mission, at Portpatrick. There the prisoner at the 
bar was married, in the presence of many witnesses, to 
Miss Ruth Stoney, by a clergyman of the church of 
Scotland, in a place of public worship. Having been 
married, they remained in Portpatrick one or two days, 
and thence immediately repaired to London. His stay 
there was not very long, but it was not an idle time; it 
was no sluggish, no obscure and inglorious period. 
On his arrival he hired a furnished house in the most 
fashionable part of the city. He hired a country villa, 
purchased four carriages and seven race horses, with 
an endless establishment of grooms, postillions, and 
out-riders. He flourished at all p'aces of public resort. 
At Newmarket and at Epsom. He shot like a meteor 
across public observation. He dazzled for a week, 
he was recollected for a month. Being sated with the 
glories of the sod he was smitten with a passion to be- 
come a candidate for parliament, and embarked in all 
the extravagance and bustle of a contested election. 
He heard of a vacancy in a borough, where money re- 
commended to distinction, and offered the senatorial 
dignity to the highest bidder. Thither he repaired 
with all the pomp and circumstance of a popular can- 
didate. Though he did not succeed, he polled a pro- 
digious number of free and independent voters, at the 
price of seventeen or eighteen thousand pounds. But, 
gentlemen, it is useless to dwell on the idle and puerile 
instances of his prodigal folly. You are aware this course 
could not long continue, a man thus blazing with lavish 
dissipation in every direction must soon have burned 
out. At the close of two years he was without money, 
without credit. The man who shone with such splen- 



193 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

dor, dared no longer to appear in the open day. Bai- 
liffs were his principal visitors, London became a soli- 
tude to hinn, and he repaired to Ireland. The prudence 
of his father-in-law had enabled him to vest in a pur- 
chase in Ireland a sum of money which produced about 
nine hundred pounds a year. To this remnant of his 
property he repaired, and he took up his habitation 
near his father-in-law. A man of his capacity for ex- 
pense must have contracted debts in Ireland as well as 
England. After a few years of ignoble extravagance 
in Ireland, he became a prisoner in his own house, it 
was besieged with bailiffs, and all the calamities of 
ruined fortune surrounded him. The man who had shone 
so brilliantly in the metropolis of the empire, was at 
last unable to show his face in the smallest village in 
Ireland. He told Mr. Berry that a project was at last 
formed by his wife's family to preserve the in::ome of 
the property which he had purchased for the mainte- 
nance of himself and family. It was suggested that his 
wife's pin-money was in arrear, and that an amicable 
bill should be filed by the trustee in order to raise it. 
That a receiver would be put upon the estate, by which 
stratagem it would be protected from the creditors, 
and he would draw the rents for his own support. The 
bill was filed, he put in his answer, admitting all that 
was stated, and there was a decree. A receiver was 
put upon the lands; and as he stated, the rents fell into 
the hands of Mr. Stoney. In order then to excite the 
humanity of Mr. Beiry he told him that the moment 
the rents were thus taken from him his father-in-law 
refused to furnish him with a penny. He told Mr. 
Berry that whilst in his career of prodigality he had 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 193 

lent his father-in-law from eight to ten thousand pounds, 
and he told him,* as the winding up of his ingratitude, 
that the very moment the receiver was put upon his 
property, his wife and children, for he had, and still has, 
four children, deserted him, and went to his father-in- 
law's house. He attempted to follow them, but was re- 
pulsed. The exhausted prodigal would not be sheltered 
under the roof of the man who had seized his last stake. 
His misery now was complete, and without remedy, he 
was abandoned by his dearest relations, banished from 
their society, their confidence and love; the doors of 
his father's house were closed against him, and he was 
left a stranger in a strange land, bereft of his fortune, 
abandoned by his wife, shunned by his offspring, and 
left a prey to want, and the impending horror of arrest 
and imprisonment. 

Such was his pitiful tale to Mr. Berry, a tale against 
the effects of which he could not, he would not struggle. 
Mr. Berry at once took him under his protection, little 
thinking that the hand which he grappled in friendship 
would one day wound him where he w^as most vulner- 
able. His humanity was not chilled by suspicion, he 
thought not of the artifice of the impostor, while he 
was stimulated to relieve the stranger, and that relief 
was bountiful as it was disinterested. How was he 
treated.'^ Mr. Berry, gentlemen, provided the prisoner 
at the bar with lodging, for the rent of which he be- 
came security — in that lodging he supplied him, out- 
cast as he was, with the necessaries, with the comforts 
of life. He was laboring under a heavy bodily malady; 
he procured him an apothecary, a physician, medicine 
and wine. It was necessary in the furtherance of his 
17 



194 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

legal pursuits to have frequent intercourse with Mr. 
Berry, and he constantly crept out in the darknes^of 
the night to visit the family of his benefactor, when- 
ever relieved from the apprehensions of the bailiff, or 
by a casual relaxation from his disease, he came pour- 
ing out the benedictions of a grateful heart to the house 
of his friend and benefactor. Whenever he came he 
was received with open arms and the most confiding 
hospitality. Those visits were dangerous to his health, 
and hazardous to his liberty. Yet they were necessary. 
These difficulties, half hinted and half anticipated, pro- 
duced an invitation to become resident in Mr. Berry's 
house, while the necessary inquiries for legal proceed- 
ings were making. He thus became an inmate in that 
house which he has rendered a scene of unparalleled 
and incurable affliction. Mr. Berry with indefatigable 
industry collected materials to lay before counsel. He 
was advised to file three bills in chancery — one to re- 
view and reverse the decree obtained in the manner I 
have described—another to force his father-in-law to 
discover and account for various sums said to be lent 
to him — and a third to compel Barry to account for 
£4,000 alleged to be kept by him at the time of the 
marriage. Mr. Berry, at his own expense, filed all 
these bills, and the suits are still depending. During 
his residence in Mr. Berry's house, his wish to please 
was unceasing, and he manifested in every act and in 
every word, the animated gratitude by which he was 
actuated. Compassion grew into esteem in every part 
of Mr. Berry's family. Gentlemen, let me say one 
word or two as to the domestic situation of Mr. Berry 
at this momentous period. He was a man of industry 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 195 

and business, not educated to pleasure, the duties and 
coficerns of an arduous profession keeping- him con- 
stantly ennployed. Mrs. Berry was in a delicate state 
of health, a valetudinarian, whose almost only care 
should be the preservation of her own existence. He 
had two daughters, the one a child, the other but a few 
years older, now in her sixteenth year of age. She, 
gentlemen, it is, who has become the hapless heroine of 
the sad story of this unfortunate family. She was in her 
person lovely, in her manners interesting, in female 
accomplishments eminently cultivated, in domestic vir- 
tues and filial duty pre-eminent. She had an ardent and 
elevated mind — a warm and affectionate heart. She was 
the delight of her parents at home, their pride abroad, 
the solace of their labors and their cares, and the antici- 
pated hope and joy of their declining lives. The love 
of offspring, the most forcible of all our instincts, is 
even stronger towards the female than the male child. 
It is wise that it should be so, it is more wanted — it is 
just that it should be so, it is more requited. There 
is no pillow on which the headof a parent, anguished 
by sickness or by sorrow, can so sweetly repose, as 
on the bosom of an affectionate daughter. Her atten- 
tions are unceasing. She is never utterly foris famili- 
atcd. The boy may afford occasional comfort and 
pride to his family — they may catch glory from his 
celebrity, and derive support from his acquisitions; but 
he never can communicate the solid and unceasing com- 
forts of life which are derived from the care and ten- 
der solicitude of the female child — she seems destined 
by Providence to be the perpetual solace and happiness 
of her parents. Even after her marriage her filial 



196 GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

attentions are unimpaired; she may give her hand and 
heart to her husband, but still she may share her cares 
and attention with her parents, without a pang of jeal- 
ousy or distrust from him. He only looks on them as 
the assured pledges of her fidelity and the unerring 
evidences of a good disposition. Mr. Berry ought, 
perhaps, to have guarded this treasure with more jeal- 
ous suspicion — perhaps he ought not to have suffered 
a man acknowledging himself to have been sunk in the 
vortex of fashionable dissipation, to have had oppor- 
tunities of converse with this young female. But, gen- 
tlemen of the jury, it is easy to be wise after experi- 
ence — it is easy to suggest expedients to prevent evil 
after it has occurred. Is there a man of you could sus- 
pect, that a married man, with four children, paralyzed 
and forlorn, received under your hospitable roof, cover- 
ed with benefits, which would have kindled gratitude 
in the basest nature, could be guilty of meditating the 
infliction of such a fatal wound upon his benefactor? 
The slightest suspicion never glanced across the mind 
of Mr. Berry or his family — it was out of the nature 
of things. Look at him, gentlemen, at the bar of his 
country! Is he an object likely to engender suspicion 
of such a crime.^ You have heard the story of his 
shattered fortunes — could his wealth have been attrac- 
tive? What could Mr. Berry have dreaded from the 
intercourse of such a man, even if he were unmarried? 
But, gentlemen, it has turned out that he had nfieans of 
acquiring an ascendancy over a young female mind 
which were unfortunately too prevailing — he was a 
man of polished manners, and though superficial, yet 
attractive endowments; his understanding, though not 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 197 

sound, was not altogether uncultivated — he had a taste 
for the belles lettres, was an adept in music and poetry, 
understood drawing, was coversant in the fashionable 
tales of the day, and possessed of all that little artillery 
of accomplishment which make a man agreeable, par- 
ticularly in female society. Gentlemen, it sometimes 
happens that the same courses which vitiate the morals 
improve the manners, and that the surface appears the 
more polished for the corruption which it covers and 
conceals. In the month of December, 1810, he was 
ordered to Cheltenham. Mrs. Berry was at the time 
very ill, and she was prescribed also the Cheltenham 
waters. Mr. Charles Berry being himself detained on 
professional business, in the spirit of aifectionate indul- 
gence, consented that the young lady should accom- 
pany her mother and the prisoner at the bar to Chel- 
tenham — thence they went to London. Mr. Robinson, 
when in the full possession of wealth had dealings with 
several persons in London who had never fully ac- 
counted with him, and v^hilst there collected a few 
hundred pounds from the ruin of his property. Whilst 
in London he paid those attentions to the young lady 
and her mother which a polite man is never deficient 
in paying, and which no suspicion of his design induced 
them to reject — he offered some slight presents to the 
young lady of trivial value, which were rejected. He 
came to Mr. Berry and lamented the situation into 
which the obdurate rejection of his gratitude had 
placed him. He affected a most high wrought sensi- 
bility — his remonstrance could not have excited any 
suspicion. *'You have taken me under your protec- 
tion — you have expended your money in supporting 
17* 



198 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

me, and in pursuit of an object which has not as yet 
fructified — you have received me into your house, and 
you will not accept of remuneration — why then refuse 
me making you this slight but grateful return? Ask 
yourself the question, if you refuse me can I ever re- 
turn to your house? Can I live under the load of your 
benefaction?" His importunities succeeded; and Miss 
Berry, with the consent of her father, received from 
him some trifling presents, not amounting in value to 
£20. Gentlemen, can you conceive any thing indeli- 
cate in that conduct? Will you say that suspicion 
should have been exciled? Was there any imprudence 
in the acceptance? Gentlemen, is there a man of you, 
who, if he had received one hundredth part of the favor 
conferred upon the prisoner, would not conceive him- 
self called on to make a return of tenfold value. The 
party returned back to Ireland in the spring, and things 
remained on this footing until the fatal 18th of Novem- 
ber last. I shall trace him through the melancholy 
occurrences of that day. Through what artifice — 
through what fascination — through what suggestion — 
by what sophistry — by what allurement he must have 
drugged the mind of this young female, it is impossible 
to say. It is a moral miracle! It is out of the ordinary 
course of human agency. Yet so it happened that on 
the 18th of November, he being at the time so worn 
down by illness that his life was in danger, with strength 
scarcely sufficient to admit his being carried to the 
carriage in the arms of the servant, he induced this 
young lady to accompany him — he told her parents 
that he was going to the hot baths, and would leave 
her at Mr. Vigne's to hear an eminent proficient, his 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCB, &C. 199 

(Vigne's) sister, play on the piano-forte, and begged 
Mr. Berry would indulge her with this musical gratifi- 
cation, as Miss Berry was considered a first performer. 
It is impossible for me, gentlemen, to account for his 
influence over this young lady's mind; it would be 
vanity in me to attempt to explain the cause; — how- 
ever, he did induce her, accompanied by her sister, a 
child from ten to twelve years old, to go to Mr. Vigne's 
in Nassau street, where the prisoner had provided a 
clergyman of the name of Harris, who actually did 
celebrate the ceremony of marriage between them, 
and having prevailed on her to become his wife in 
point of ceremony, he was carried back to his car- 
riage and afterwards in Mr. Berry's servant's arms to 
his own bed. I am happy, gentlemen, to say that he 
did not, he could not, render his crime perfect and 
complete. It is really a curious riddle; it surpasses 
any thing I ever heard or read of, and but for the mel- 
ancholy and afflicting distress of her injured family, it 
would be a matter of novel and curious inquiry to dis- 
cover how he should have sought or acquired that as- 
cendancy over her mind. It could not be a gross and 
sensual passion — a glance of your eye must refute the 
idea. What! a sensual passion for a being, such as 
you behold, drooping under the ravages of disease, 
and unable to walk to a carriage! It could not be a 
mercenary attachment to the object of her father's 
charity. It must have been some menial fascination. 
By what artifices that unworthy man could influence 
the mind of a person ten times his superior in under- 
standing is astonishing; the means are incredible — 
whether he told her of the sufferings of his youth — the 



200 GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

ruin of his fortunes — his desertion by his wife and her 
ingratitude — whether his distresses excited her com- 
passion, or whether he deluded her into the notion of 
his marriage being void, is quite inexplicable; — but so 
prevalent was his power over her mind that she would 
not have disputed his authority, and probably she would 
have more cheerfully obeyed him, if he had commanded 
her to give her hand to any other man. The charita- 
ble public who will hear of this trial ought to carry in 
their minds this extenuation — the utter impossibility 
that any thing sensual, or vain, or mercenary, could 
have actuated her mind to that strange and blind obe- 
dience. And when female criticism sits in judgment 
upon this hapless young lady, and is about to pronounce 
an austere and unfeeling judgment, I hope it will be 
recollected that their common and primeval parent fell 
under the fascination of a reptile. 

Gentlemen, Miss Berry returned from the ceremony 
to her father's house — very soon it became visible that 
some dire misfortune had befallen her and her family; 
from the hour of her return to the day of the disclo- 
sure of her calamity, she drooped and languished — at 
meals a mere spectator; her interesting deportment, 
her cheerful manners were gone — she could not look 
in the face of her parents, and the eye of any human 
creature was distressing to her: — from the hour of her 
misfortune she never entered into the door of her aunt 
(Mrs. Hetherington) whose property she was to inherit, 
and to which I trust she has not disentitled herself 
What was, gentlemen, the object of the prisoner at 
the bar.^ His object was to render home so irksome 
and odious to her, that he could induce her to elope 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 201 

with him, and he was, in fact, coUectiag funds to put 
his plans into execution. At length the expostulation 
of her friends upon the alteration of her manners, drew 
from this unhappy girl the acknowledgment of her 
situation in the presence of Mr. Robinson, who did 
confess the fact, and claim her as his wife. And what, 
gentlemen, was the consequence? It affected Mr. Berry 
with amazement, rage and horror; but with such a stu- 
por of grief that the acknowledged culprit crawled off 
with his life. The intemperate sorrow of Mr. Berry 
led him thoughtlessly to disclose the melancholy tale 
to his wife, and for three days she was affected with 
unremitted fits of hysterics threatening a permanent 
loss of reason! And, gentlemen, what was its efiect 
upon her aunt? — the moment she heard it she was af- 
fected with an apoplexy. Such, gentlemen, was the 
gratitude flowing from the prisoner at the bar to Mr. 
Berry for the services he had rendered him. Gentle- 
men, under these circumstances what was Mr. Berry 
to have done? Has he acted right? He had but one 
of three courses to adopt — he might have connived at 
this improper connexion and irreligiously sanctioned 
it by his subsequent ratification, choosing between ex- 
posure and vice — but had he deliberated upon this al- 
ternative he would have been a worse criminal than the 
man he prosecutes. He might have strove to have 
hushed it. Perhaps a man whose sensibility was 
stronger than his reason might waver in his determi- 
nation as to this course. But Mr. Berry had no choice! 
even that expedient was denied him. The prisoner at 
the bar publicly claimed her as his wife. It was not 
left this unhappy father to bury the whole transaction 



202 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

in oblivion — he was driven to the last and sad alterna- 
tive to yield to the suggestion of his own feelings — to 
yield to the unanimous advice of his friends — for though 
his life may be embittered — though he and his family 
may never wear the cheerful smile, or appear with that 
unclouded hilarity which accompanied their former 
intercourse with the world, yet he must derive con- 
solation from the recollection of his having brought a 
delinquent of his atrocious guilt to punishment, and in 
having provided that this man shall not repeat his 
crimes, and bring sorrow into the bosom of other fami- 
lies — and if he does, it must be in that region of cul- 
prits to whom he has levelled himself as a fit associate. 
Gentlemen, we will prove this case to you. There 
cannot be a doubt of the double marriage — how it can 
be vindicated it is impossible for me to discover. It 
comes before you badged with every aggravation 
which sensibility would shudder at; — but if you doubt 
the fact of these marriages, God forbid that any thing 
I have said or could suggest should operate to supply 
the evidence — the very enormity of the crime should 
be a ground of favor in deciding upon his guilt; but as 
to any cavilling points and capricious doubts, not deny- 
ing the turpitude of the case or the commission of the 
crime — you cannot, gentlemen, feel yourselves war- 
ranted in entertaining them with favor. Gentlemen, I 
have now stated what I conceive to have been due to 
public justice and the family of this lady, and I now 
implore those who are present at this trial, or may hear 
of it abroad — I implore those who may be ready to 
censure indiscretion in others, when they have been 
more fortunate themselves, mercifully to recollect the 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 203 

youth of this hapless female and the influence by 
which she was led away. The kind of man, under 
the fascination of whose power she wandered from 
the direct path of rectitude — the utter impossibility 
of her being actuated by sensual or mercenary mo- 
tives — how tyrannical that mental influence becomes 
over understandings naturally strong and superior to 
the government it submits to — a government which 
we see every day exercised by the meanest instru- 
ments over the most exalted characters. We will 
produce the evidence to establish those facts, and I 
know you will find that verdict which the evidence 
will warrant. 

MR. BURROWES. 



CHARACTER OF MR. GRATTAN. 

I FEEL but little any portion of the noble lord's ob- 
loquy, which may attach to me or my humble ef- 
forts; but I own, I cannot repress my indignation at the 
audacious boldness of the calumny, which would as- 
perse one of the most exalted characters which any 
nation ever produced, and that in a country which 
owes its liberties and its greatness to the energy of his 
exertions, and in the very house which has so often 
been the theatre of his glorious labors and splendid 
achievements. I remember that man the theme of 
universal panegyric — the wonder and the boast of 
Ireland for his genius and his virtue. His name silenced 
the sceptic upon the reality of genuine patriotism. To 
doubt the purity of his motives was a heresy which 



204 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

no tongue dared to utter — envy was lost in admiration, 
and even they whose crimes he scourged, blended ex- 
torted praises with the murmurs of resentment. He 
covered our then unfledged constitution with the ample 
wings of his talents — as the eagle cov^ers her young; 
like her he soared, and like her he could behold the 
rays, whether of royal favor or of royal anger, with 
undazzled, unintimidated eye. If, according to De- 
mosthenes, to grow with the growth, and to decay 
with the decline of our country, be the true criterion 
of a good citizen, how infinitely did this man, even in 
the moment of his lowest depression, surpass those up- 
start patriots who only become visible when their 
country vanishes. 

Sir, there is something most singularly curious, and 
according to my estimation of things, enviable, in the 
fate of this great man; his character and his conse- 
quence, are as it were, vitally interwoven with the 
greatness of his country — the one cannot be high, and 
the other low — the one cannot stand, and the other 
perish; this was so well understood by those who have 
so long meditated to put down the constitution of Ire- 
land, that, feeling that they could not seduce, they have 
incessantly labored to calumniate her most vigilant 
centinel and ablest champion — they appealed to every 
unguarded prejudice, to every assailable weakness of 
a generous but credulous people — they watched every 
favorable moment of irritation or of terror to pour in 
the detested poison of calumny. Sir, it will be found 
on a retrospect of Ireland since 1782, that her liber- 
ties never received a wound, that a correspondent stab 
was not levelled at his character, and when it was 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 205 

vainly hoped, that his imperishable fame was laid in 
the dust, the times were deemed ripe for the extinction 
of our constitution. Sir, those impious labors cannot 
finally succeed, glory and liberty are not easily 
effaced — Grattan and the constitution will survive 
the storm. 



MR. BURROWES. 



CONDUCT OF LORD CASTLEREAGH IN FORWARDING THE IRISH 
UNION. 

But is the parliament to which he thus primarily and 
exclusively resorts, left to exercise its unbiassed judg- 
ment? I shall not dwell upon this odious subject — I 
shall not compare the black list with the red book — 
nor enumerate those who lost, with those who gained, 
offices — I shall not anticipate those posthumous funeral 
honors which await some who have undertaken for the 
extinction of the constitution of their country, if they 
shall succeed in their pious labors, or allude to the 
phx7iix judges who are to spring out of the ashes of 
the Irish legislature. I do not like even to think of 
these deluded men who forgot they had a country pro- 
bably because they thought their country would not 
survive to remember them. I turn to a more grateful 
subject. The virtue of this house triumphed over the 
minister, and refuted the calumnies which were level- 
led even more at your existence than your fame. The 
measure was defeated — tranquillity was restored — and 
18 



206 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

what, if possible, was better, this house was raised 
in the public estimation, and endeared to the heart of 
every honest Irishman. This was a consummation 
devoutly to be wished — this was an accidental good 
flowing from the miscarriage of a bad measure, at 
which a wise minister would have exulted, and upon 
which he might have improved. What was the con- 
duct of the minister? He suddenly changes, if not his 
principles, his practice — he appeals from the refrac- 
tory competence of parliament to the derided sovereignty 
of the people — the people became every thing — the 
parliament nothing — compared with him Tom Paine 
dwindles into an aristocrat — can it be credited in 
Europe — can it be credited by posterity? Thai t]i$ 
minister xcho has lavished so much treasure and blood in 
combating republican principles in France — to who.^e 
mind jacobinism is a compendium of every crime — 
who cannot hear the physical strength of a country 
mentioned without horror — that this minister should 
dive into cellars and climb into garrets to solicit plebeian 
signatures agaiyist the ancient constitution of Ireland — 
that he should set on foot a poll of the populace against 
the coyistitution — that he should blacken the columns of 
the government prints with the names of day laborers 
of the lowest description, attesting in favor of his 
jacobiriical innovation ! * 

* W^hat a beginning was this for Uie future fa?orite of modern 
legitimacy and holy aUiances ! 



MR. BURRO WES, 



Olf THE INJUSTICE AND SEVERITY OF THE PENAL CODE IN 
IRELAND. 

Gentlemen : 

It would be a bitter reflection on your character 
as Irishmen, to presume you to be hostile to the prin- 
ciple, or pursuit, of the Catholic committees. Per- 
suaded I am, that whatever your religion may be, or 
your zeal for that religion — whatever your natural, 
manly, and constitutional hatred of slavish principles; 
whatever your predilection for your own creed may 
be, there is not a man of you who does not rejoice at 
the blessings which have flowed from the breaking 
down of the penal code. Some of you are old enough 
to remember this country in a state of the lowest de- 
gradation. Half a century back it was so squalid and 
contemptible that any stranger, whom chance or curi- 
osity brought to our shores, entered it w^ith terror and 
left it with disgust. No historian, no tour writer named 
Ireland but in terms of reproach. Tiie code which 
caused this lamentable condition has been broken in 
upon by Protestant liberality going hand in hand with 
Catholic zeal. It was a code calculated to degrade 
the Catholics, not merely to the state of the beasts of 
the field, but far beneath them — to deprive them not 
only of every natural and civil right, but of every thing 
that could improve or embellish the nature of man. 



208 GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

Every inlet of knowledge was closed against them. 
No Roman Catholic could be taught even the rudi- 
ments of learning but upon the terms of abdicating his 
principles, and surrendering his conscience, by re- 
nouncing his creed. Harsh measures were adopted to 
keep their minds as grovelling as their personal condi- 
tion was abject. Not a ray of light could approach 
them, except such pilfered literature as persecuted 
pedagogues could convey, or such barbarous philoso- 
phy as could be supplied from foreign universities 
under the severest prohibitions, as if ignorance were 
an antidote to superstition — as if the light of science 
would extinguish the light of the Gospel! 



MR. BUSHE, 



INJUSTICE OF THE MEASURE OF UNION. 

I STRIP this formidable measure of all its pretences and 
its aggravations; I look at it nakedly and abstractedly, 
and I see nothing in it but one question — will you give 
up the country? — 1 forget for a moment the unprinci- 
pled means by which it has been promoted, I pass by 
for an instant the unseasonable moment at wiiich it was 
introduced, and the contempt of parliament upon which 
it is bottomed, and I look upon it simply as England 
reclaiming, in a moment of your weakness, that do- 
minion which you extorted from her in a moment of 
your virtue, a dominion which she uniformly abused, 



GEMS OF IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 209 

which invariably oppressed and impoverished you, and 
from the cessation of which you date all your prosperity. 
It is a measure which goes to degrade the country by 
saying it is unworthy to govern itself, and to stultify the 
parliament, by saying it is incapable of governing the 
country. It is the revival of the odious and absurd title 
of conquest; it is the renewal of the abominable dis- 
tinction^between mother country and colony which lost 
America; it is the denial of the rights of nature to a 
great nation, from an intolerance of its prosperity. No 
man would be so frantic as to state as an abstract pro- 
position, that Ireland is physically disfranchised from 
the common privileges of nations. If you stated to a 
native of a foreign nation that a country, containing a 
population of nearly five millions of inhabitants, and 
a territory of nearly nineteen millions of English acres, 
inhabited by a brave and generous people, blest by 
nature with a fertile soil, and every aptitude for com- 
mercial prosperity and domestic wealth, was physi- 
cally incapable of^governing itself, that foreigner would 
laugh at you. If you stated that a country containing 
relatively nearly a half of the population of Great 
Britain, though scarcely a third of its territory, and 
containing a metropolis at least the fourth city in 
Europe, exceeding in extent and population the capi- 
tals of his majesty's imperial allies, the Emperors of 
Russia and Germany, was by nature doomed to pro- 
vincial inferiority, and was radically disqualified from 
governing itself, you would pronounce a libel upon a 
bountiful Providence, and a libel that would not be 
endured. 

*18 



MR. BUSHE 



REPLY TO THE CHARGE OF JACOBINISM MADE BY MR. PLUNKET 
AGAINST THE ATTORNEY AND SOLICITOR GENERAL OF IRELAND 
FOR RESISTING THE RIGHT OF THE CHIEF BARON TO THE AP- 
POINTMENT OF CLERK OF THE PLEAS, IN HIS COURT. 



The weight of the censure which has fallen on us is 
increased in proportion to the height from which it has 
descended. It has come from the counsel of a chief 
judge of the land : from the lips of one of the most 
illustrious individuals in this country; from a member 
of the united parliament; from a man whose inimitable 
advocacy is but secondary to that high character for 
integrity and talent, which he has established for him- 
self and for our nation — upon whose accents "the lis- 
tening senate" hangs — with w^hose renowm the entire 
empii^ resounds. From such a man, censure is cen- 
sure indeed. I call then upon him not to stop half 
way in the discharge of his duty. If we are tyrannical 
and oppressive — if we have revived and transcended 
the worst precedents of the worst days of preroga- 
tive — I call upon him in the name of justice — of our 
ancient friendship, and of our common country — I call 
upon him by every obligation which can bind man, to 
impeach us. If he be not our prosecutor, he becomes 
our accomplice. He is bound to call us to the bar of 
that senate, where he will be on his legs and we shall 
be upon our knees; and if his accusation be true, our 
heads are due to justice. The character of the chief 



GEMS OP IRISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 211 

baron has been redeemed by me; I have rescued the 
character of the court of exchequer; I have vindicated 
my ow^n; one yet remains — the character of Mr. Plun- 
ket himself — and, therefore, I call upon him in support 
of his high reputation, to bring us to Westminster 
where impeachment is constitutional — where he will 
hold his high place and the lofty port which becomes 
him. I call upon him to assume the senator and the 
patriot, and assert his rank in that august assembly. 
To none has that high station which he holds in it 
given more delight than to me. I rejoice in it, as an 
attached and ardent friend, and as an Irishman, I exult 
in a man who has exalted the character of our country 
in the senate as high as another illustrious countryman 
has raised it in the field. Let him not stop at the 
charge which he has made in this place — let him follow 
it up — "non progredi est regredi" — he must either 
give up with shame this unjust attack upon the ser- 
vants of the crown, or he must follow up his duty as a 
member of parliament, and carry us before the bar of 
the commons. Let him do so — we are not afraid — 
therCj at least, the judicial determination shall not be 
upon the hearing of one party. Let him remember 
that the charge is illegality, jacobinism, and revolution, 
and that the crime is disrespect to what he calls the 
adjudication of the court of exchequer! The very 
neighborhood of Westminster Hall ought to make him 
pause. What! state within its precincts, that a court 
of exchequer in Ireland had made a solemn determina- 
tion in a case where one party was not present and 
where the other presided! The very walls of West- 
minster Hall would utter forth a groan at such an 



212 GEMS OF IR.ISH ELOaUENCE, &C. 

insult to the judicial character — the very monuments 
would yield 'up their illustrious dead — and the shades 
of Mansfield, and of Somers, of Holt and of Hale, 
would start from their tombs to rebuke the atrocious 
imputation. I must call upon him to go on — but if he 
should — I tell this Wellington of the senate, that he 
will do so at the peril of his laurels — I tell him, that 
they are foredoomed to wither to the root. 



GEMS 

O F 

IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

CURRAN AND LORD CLARE. 

Another peculiarity of the Irish bar that is now pass- 
ing away, but which prevailed to a great extent during 
Mr. Curran's forensic career, was the frequency of 
collisions between the bar and the bench. It was often 
his fate to be involved in them, and many are the 
instances of the promptness of repartee, and of the 
indignant intrepidity with which on all such occasions 
he defended the privileges of the advocate. It will be 
presently seen that he had scarcely appeared at the 
bar, when he showed how he could encounter and tri- 
umph over all the taunts and menaces of a hostile judge. 
The same spirit of resistance and retaliation will be 
found in his contests with Lord Clare; and at a much 
subsequent period, when he was exerting himself in a 
cause with his characteristic firmness, the presiding 
judge having called the sheriff' to be ready to take into 
custody any one who should disturb the decorum of his 
court, "Do, Mr. Sheriff",^' replied Mr. Curran, "go and 
get ready my dungeon; prepare a bed of straw for me; 
and upon that bed I shall to-night repose with more 
tranquillity than I should enjoy were I sitting upon that 
bench with a consciousness that I disgraced it.*" 



CURRAN AND MACKLIN. 



Aftfr Mr. Curran had concluded liis terms, he was 
detained for some time in London in expectation of a 
remittance from Ireland, witliout which he could nei- 
ther discharge his arrears at his lodgings, nor return 
to his own country. At length, just as his purse had 
attained ''the last stage of inanition," he received a 
bill of exchange upon a banking house in Lombard 
street: without stopping to examine the bill minutely, 
he flew to present it; but the banker soon discovered 
that a necessary endorsement was omitted, and of course 
refused to pay it. Of the scene upon this occasion, as 
it took place across the counter, his own consternation 
at the dreadful tidings, and the banker's insensibility 
to his distress, his solemn and repeated protestations 
that the bill came from a most respectable merchant in 
the butter trade at Cork, and the wary citizen's marked 
distrust of all that was Irish, Mr. Curran used to give 
a most dramatic and ludicrous description. Having 
left the banker's, and being without a shilling in his 
pocket, he strolled into St. James' Park, where he 
remained during his usual dinner hour, considering the 
means of relieving himself from his present necessity; 
but after long reflection, he could only come to one 
certain conclusion, that the misfortune could never 
hare happened more inopportunely, every one of his 
Irish friends, to whom alone he could have applied, 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 215 

having quitted London, leaving him behind, awaiting 
this remittance. 

As he sat upon one of the benches, exhausted with 
devising expedients, he began to whistle a melancholy 
old Irish air; an old gentleman seated at the other end 
(it was Macklin) started at the well-known sounds. 

"Pray, sir," said the stranger, '*may I venture to 
ask where you learned that tune?" 

"Indeed, sir," replied the whistler, in the meek and 
courteous tone of a spirit which affliction had softened, 
"indeed you may, sir; I learned it in my native coun- 
try, in Ireland." 

"But how comes it, sir, that at this hour, while other 
people are dining, you continue here, whistling old 
Irish airs.?" 

"Alas! sir, I too have been in the habit of dining of 
late, but to-day, my money being all gone, and my 
credit not yet arrived^ I am even forced to come and 
dine upon a whistle in the park." 

Struck by the mingled despondence and playfulness 
of this confession, the benevolent veteran exclaimed: 
"Courage, young man! I think I can see that you de- 
serve better fare; come along with me, and you shall 
have it." 

About ten years after this interview, Macklin came 
to Dublin. Mr. Curran, who in the interval had risen 
to eminence, was invited one evening to a party where 
the actor was one of the company; they were presented 
to each other, but Macklin failed to recognize in the 
now celebrated advocate and orator, the distressed stu- 
dent in St. James' Park. Mr. Curran, perceiving this, 
abstained for the moment from claiming any acquaint- 



216 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

ance; but he contrived in a little time to introduce a 
conversation upon the acts of kindness and hospitality 
which Irishmen so generally receive abroad from such 
of their countrymen as they may chance to meet; as a 
proof of which he began to relate what had happened 
to himself, and proceeded to give a vivid picture of 
the scene, and (suppressing the name) of the generous 
old man who had befriended him in a land of strangers. 
A glow of recollection was soon observed upon the 
player's countenance; he started, and fixing his eyes upon 
the speaker, "If my memory fails me not, sir," said 
he, "we have met before.'*" "Yes, Mr. Macklin," re- 
plied Mr. Curran, taking his hand, "indeed we have 
met; and though upon that occasion you were only 
performing upon a private theatre, let me assure you, 
that, to adopt the words of a high judicial personage, 
which you have heard before, you never acted better?'^ 



PERSONAL APPEARANCE 

OF 

MR. CURRAN. 

Mr. Curran's person was short, slender and ungrace- 
ful, resembling rather the form of a youth not yet fully 
developed, than the compact stature of a man. His 
face was as devoid of beauty as his frame. His com- 
plexion was of that deep muddy tinge by which Dean 
Swift's is said to have been distinguished. He had a 
dark, glistening, intellectual eye; high arched, and 
thickly covered brows; strong, uncurled, jet-black 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 217 

hair, which lay flat upon his forehead and temples. 
When his thoughts were unoccupied (which was rare) 
his features were not particularly expressive; but the 
moment he became animated, there was a rush of mind 
into his countenance which dilated every fibre, and 
impressed upon it, a character of peculiar energy and 
genius. 



CURRAN AND LORD CLARE. 

The occasional style of their warfare in the court of 
Chancery, for the little time that Mr. Curran continued 
to be employed there, may be collected from the fol- 
lowing instance. Lord Clare had a favorite dog that 
sometimes followed him to the bench. One day, during 
an argument of Mr. Curran's, the chancellor, in the spirit 
of habitual petulance which distinguished him, instead of 
attending to the argument, turned his head aside, and 
began to fondle the dog. The counsel stopped suddenly 
in the middle of a sentence — the judge started. "I beg 
pardon," said Mr. Curran, "I thought your lordships 
had been in consultation; but as you have been pleased 
to resume your attention allow me to impress upon 
your excellent understandings, that"— &c. 



19 



MR. CURRAN AND JUDGE ROBINSON. 



Mr. Curran having observed in some case before 
judge Robinson, 'Hhat he had never met the law as 
' laid down by his lordship, in any book in his library.'' 
''That may be, sir," said the judge, in an acrid con- 
temptuous tone; ''but I suspect that j/ot^r library is very 
small." His lordship, who, like too many of that time, 
w^as a party zealot, was known to be the author of 
several anonymous political pamphlets, which were 
chiefly conspicuous for their despotic principles and 
excessive violence. The young barrister, roused by 
the sneer at his circumstances, replied that true it was 
that his library might be small, but he thanked heaven 
that, among his books, there were none of the wretched 
productions of the frantic pamphleteers of the day. 
"I find it more instructive, my lord, to study good 
works than to compose bad ones; my books may be 
few, but the title-pages give me the writers' names: 
my shelf is not disgraced by any of such rank absur- 
dity that their very authors are ashamed to own them." 
He was here interrupted by the judge, who said, "Sir, 
you are forgetting the respect which you owe to the 
dignity of the judicial character." — "Dignity!" ex- 
claimed Mr. Curran; "my lord, upon that point I shall 
cite you a case from a book of some authority, with 
which you are perhaps not unacquainted. A poor 
Scotchman, upon his arrival in London, thinking him- 



GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 219 

self insulted by a stranger, and imagining that he was 
the stronger man, resolved to resent the affront, and 
taking off his coat, delivered it to a bystander to hold; 
but having lost the battle, he turned to resume his gar- 
ment, when he discovered that he had untbrtunatdy 
lost that also, that the trustee of his habiliments had 
decamped during the affray. So, my lord, when the 
person who is invested with the dignity of the judg- 
ment-seat, lays it aside for a moment, to enter into a 
disgraceful personal contest, it is vain, when he lias 
been worsted in the encounter, that he seeks to resume 
it — it is in vain that he endeavors to shelter himself 
from behind an authority, which he has abandoned." 

Judge Robinson. — "If you say another word, sir, 
Pll commit you." 

Mr. Curran. — "Then, my lord, it will be the best 
thing you'll have committed this term." 

The judge did not commit him; but he was under- 
stood to have solicited the bench to interfere, and 
make an example of the advocate by depriving him of 
his gown, and to have received so little encourage- 
ment, that he thought it most prudent to proceed no 
further in the affair. 



MR. CURRAN'S EARLY EFFORTS. 



He has been frequently alluded to as one of the many 
examples in the history of the bar, of the highest 
talents remaining for a long time unknown and unre- 
warded. This, however, was not the fact: so general 
was the reputation of his abilities, and so numerous 
his personal friends, that he became employed imme- 
diately, and to an extent that is very unusual with 
those, who, like him, have solely depended upon their 
own exertions, and upon accidental support. 

The failure of Mr. Curran's first attempt at speaking 
has been mentioned: a more singular instance of that 
nervousness which so frequently accompanies the 
highest capacity, occurred to him upon his debut in 
the courts. The first brief that he held was in the 
court of Chancery; he had only to read a short sen- 
tence from his instructions, but he did it so precipi- 
tately and inaudibly, that the chancellor, Lord Lifford, 
requested of him to repeat the words, and to raise his 
voice: upon this his agitation became so extreme that 
he was unable to articulate a syllable; the brief dropped 
from his hands^ and a friend who sat beside him was 
obliged to take it up and read the necessary passage. 



MR. CURRAN'S 

FIRST ATTEMPT AT ORATORY. 



It was during his attendance at the temple that Mr. 
Curran made the first trial of his rhetorical powers. 
He frequented a debating society that was composed 
of his fellow-students. His first attempt was unsuc- 
cessful, and for the moment quite disheartened him. 
He had had from his boyhood a considerable precipi- 
tation and confusion of utterance, from which he was 
denominated by his school-fellows "stuttering Jack 
Curran." This defect he had labored to remove, but 
the cure was not yet complete. From the agitation of 
a first efi'ort he was unable to pronounce a syllable; 
and so little promise did there appear of his shining as 
a speaker, that his friend Apjohn said to him, "I have 
a high opinion of your capacity; confine yourself to 
the study of law, and you will to a certainty become 
an eminent chamber-counsel, but, depend upon it, 
nature never intended you for an orator." Fortunately 
for his fame, this advice was disregarded: he continued 
to attend the above and other debating clubs, at one of 
which, during a discussion, some personal and irritating 
expressions having been levelled at him, his indigna- 
tion, and along with his talent, was roused. Forget- 
ting all his timidity and hesitation, he rose against his 
assailant, and, for the first time, revealed to his hearers 
19* 



222 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

and to himself that style of original and impetuous 
oratory, which he afterwards improved into such per- 
fection, and which now bids fair to preserve his name. 
He used often to entertain his friends by detailing this 
event of his mind's having "burst the shell." The 
following was the manner in which he once related it; 
for one of the great charms of his colloquial powers 
was the novelty that he could give to the same facts 
upon every repetition: he adorned a favorite anecdote, 
as a skilful musician would a favorite air, by an endless 
variety of unpremeditated ad libitum graces. 

One day after dinner, an acquaintance, in speaking 
of his eloquence, happened to observe that it must 
have been born with him. ^^Indeed, my dear sir," 
replied Mr. Curran, "it was not; it was born three and 
twenty years and some months after me; and, if you 
are satisfied to listen to a dull historian, you shall have 
the history of its nativity. 

''When I was at the Temple, a few of us formed a 
little debating club — poor Apjohn, and Duhigg,* and 
the rest of them! they have all disappeared from the 
stage; but my own busy hour will soon be fretted 
through, and then we may meet again behind the 
scenes. Poor fellows! they are now at rest; but I still 
can see them, and the glow of honest bustle on their / 
looks, as they arranged their little plan of honorable 
association (or, as Pope would say, 'gave their little 
senate laws,') where all the great questions in ethics 
and politics (there were no gagging-bills in those days) 
were to be discussed and irrevocably settled. Upon 

• The late B. T. Duhigg, Esq. of the Irish bar. 



GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 223 

the first night of our assembling, I attended, my foolish 
heart throbbing with the anticipated honor of being 
styled Hhe learned member that opened the debate,' 
or'^the very eloquent gentleman who has just sat down.' 
All day the coming scene had been flitting before my 
fancy, and cajoling it; my ear already caught the glo- 
rious melody of 'hear him, hear him!' Already I was 
practising how to steal a cunning side-long glance at 
the tear of generous approbation bubbling in the eyes 
of my little auditory; never suspecting, alas! that a 
modern eye may have so little affinity with moisture 
that the finest gunpowder may be dried upon it. I 
stood up — the question was Catholic claims or the 
slave trade, I protest I now forget which, but the dif- 
ference you know, was never very obvious — my mind 
was stored with about a folio volume of matter, but I 
wanted a preface, and for want of a preface the volume 
was never published. I stood up, trembling through 
every fibre; but remembering that in this I was but 
imitating Tully, I took courage, and had actually pro- 
ceeded almost as far as 'Mr. Chairman,' when to my 
astonishment and terror, I perceived that every eye 
was riveted upon me. There were only six or seven 
present, and the little room could not have contained 
as many more; yet was it, to my panic-struck imagi- 
nation, as if I were the central object in nature, and 
assembled millions were gazing upon me in breathless 
expectation. I became dismayed and dumb; my 
friends cried 'hear him!' but there was nothing to 
hear. My lips, indeed, went through the pantomime 
of articulation, but I was like the unfortunate fiddler 
at the fair, who upon coming to strike up the solo that 



224 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

was to ravish every ear, discovered that an enemy had 
maliciously soaped his bow; or rather like poor Punch 
as I once saw him, (and how many like him have I 
seen in our old house of commons! but it is dead, and 
let us not disturb its ashes) grimacing a soliloquy, of 
which his prompter behind had most indiscreetly ne- 
glected to administer the words. So you see, sir, it 
was not born with me. However, though my friends, 
even Apjohn, the most sanguine of them, despaired of 
me, the cacoethes loquendi was not to be subdued with- 
out a struggle. I was for the present silenced, but I 
still attended our meetings with the most laudable re- 
gularity, and even ventured to accompany the others 
to a more ambitious theatre, 'the Devils of Temple 
Bar;' where truly may I say, that many a time the 
Devil's own work was going forward. Here, warned 
by fatal experience that a man's powers may be over- 
strained, I at first confined myself to a simple *ay' op 
'no,' and, by dint of practice and encouragement, 
brought my tongue to recite these magical elements of 
parliamentary eloquence with 'such sound emphasis 
and good discretion,' that in a fortnight's time I had 
completed my education for the Irish senate. 

"Such was my state, the popular throb just begin- 
ning to revisit my heart, when a long expected remit- 
tance arrived from Newmarket; Apjohn dined with 
me that day, and when the leg of mutton, or rather the 
bone, was removed, we offered up the libation of an 
additional glass of punch for the health and length of 
days (and heaven heard the prayer) of the kind mother 
that had remembered the necessities of her absent 
child. In the evening we repaired to 'the Devils.* 



G^EMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 225 

One of them was upon his legs; a fellow of whom it 
was impossible to decide, whether he was most dis- 
tinguished by the filth of his person or by the flip- 
pancy of his tongue; just such another as Harry Flood 
would have called 'the highly gifted gentleman with 
the dirty cravat and' greasy pantaloons.'* I found this 
learned personage in the act of calumniating chronol- 
ogy by the most preposterous anachronisms, and (as I 
believe I shortly after told him) traducing the illustri- 
ous dead by affecting a confidential intercourse with 
them, as he would with some nobleman, his ery dear 
friend^ behind his back, who, if present, would indig- 
nantly repel the imputation of so insulting an intimacy. 
He descanted upon Demosthenius, the glory of the 
Roman forum; spoke of TuUy as the famous cotempo- 
rary and rival of Cicero; and in the short space of one 
half hour, transported the straits of Marathon three 
several times to the plains of Thermopylae. Thinking 
that I had a right to know something of these matters, 
I looked at him with surprise; and whether it was the 
money in my pocket, or my classical chivalry, or most 
probably the supplemental tumbler of punch, that gave 
my face a smirk of saucy confidence, when our eyes 
met there was something like wager of battle in mine; 
upon which the erudite gentleman instantly changed 
his invective against antiquity into an invective against 
me, and concluded by a few words of friendly counsel 

* Mr. Currah here alluded to the celebrated Mr. Flood's custom of 
distinguishing the speakers at the London debating societies by- 
such ludicrous descriptions of their dress, as "the eloquent friend to 
reform in the threadbare coat," "the able supporter of the present 
ministry with the new pair of boots," &c. 



226 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE, 

(horresco ref evens) to 'orator mum,' who he doubted 
not possessed wonderful talents for eloquence, although 
he would recommend him to show it in future by some 
more popular method than his silence. I followed his 
advice, and I believe not entirely without effect; for 
when upon sitting down, I whispered my friend, that 
I hoped he did not think my dirty antagonist had come 
'quite clean off!' 'On the contrary, my dear fellow,' 
said he, 'every one around me is declaring that it is 
the first time they ever saw him so well dressed.' So, 
sir, you see that to try the bird, the spur must touch 
his blood." 



CURRAN'S 

BON MOTSAND WITTIClSMSi 

An entire collection of the bon mots attributed to Mr. 
Curran would fill many pages. The following are 
selected as a few specimens. In all of them it will be 
seen how much less the essence depends upon the 
satire than upon the fanciful combination of words or 
images. 

Mr. Curran was engaged in a legal argument — be- 
hind him stood his colleague, a gentleman whose per- 
son was remarkably tall and slender, and who had 
originally designed to take orders. The judge ob- 
serving that the case under discussion involved a ques- 
tion of ecclesiastical law — "Then," said Mr. Curran, 
"I can refer your lordship to a high authority behind 
me, who was once intended for the churchy though 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 227 

{in a whisper to a friend beside him) m my opinion he 
was fitter for the steeph?"^ 

An officer of one of the courts, named Halfpenny, 
having frequently interrupted Mr. Curran, the judge 
peremptorily ordered him to be silent and sit down. 
"I thank your lordship," said the counsel, "for having 
fiit length nailed that rap to the counter?'^ 

"I can't tell you, Curran," observed an Irish noble- 
man who had voted for the Union, how frightful our 
old house of commons appears to me." "Ah! my lord," 
replied the other, "it is only natural for murderers to 
be afraid of ghosts." 

A deceased judge had a defect in one of his limbs, 
from which, when he walked, one foot described al- 
most a circle round the other. Mr. Curran being asked 
how his lordship still contrived to walk so fast, answer- 
ed — "don't you see that one leg goes before like a tip- 
staff, and clears the way for the other.^" 

Mr. Curran, cross-examining a horse-jockey's ser- 
vant, asked his master's age. "I never put my hand 
in his mouth to try," answered the witness. The 
laugh was against the counsel, till he retorted — "you 
did perfectly right, friend, for your master is said to 
be a great bife." 

A miniature painter, upon his cross-examination by 
Mr. Curran was made to confess that he had carried 
his improper freedoms with a particular lady so far as 
to attempt to put his arm round her waist. "Then, 
sir," said the counsel, "I suppose you took that waist 
{waste) for a common^ 

"No man," said a wealthy, but a weak-headed bar- 
rister, "should be admitted to the bar, who has not an 



228 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

independent landed property.'' "May I ask, sir," said 
Mr. Curran, "how many acres make a wise-acreV^ 

"Would you not have known this boy to be my son, 
from his resemblance to me?" asked a gentleman. Mr. 
Curran answered — "Yes, sir; the maker's name is 
stamped upon the fcZacZe." 

Mr. Curran was asked what an Irish gentleman, just 
arrived in England, could mean by perpetually putting 
out his tongue? Answer, — "I suppose he's trying to 
catch the English accent^ 

At a public dinner he was defending his countrymen 
against the imputation of being a naturally vicious race. 
"Many of our faults, for instance," said he, "arise from 
our too free use of the circulating medium {pointing to 
the wine^) but I never heard of an Irishman being born 
drunk,^^ 

He was fond of giving ludicrous appellations to the 
places and persons around him. His friend, Mr. Hud- 
son the dentist's house, was built in "the Tuscan order;" 
a celebrated snuff manufacturer's country seat was 
"Sneeze town;" the libraries at watering places were 
"slopshops of literature." He called a commander of 
yeomanry (who dealed largely in flour) "Marshall 
Sacks;" a lawyer of a corpulent frame, "Grotius;" 
another who had a habit of swelling out his cheeks, 
"Puffendorf " He often humorously remonstrated with 
a friend, who was of a very tall stature, and with whom, 
as one of his "very longest acquaintances," he used 
that freedom, "upon his want of decorum in going 
about and peeping down the chimneys, to see what his 
neighbors were to have for dinner." This list might 
be extended to a greater length than would be neces- 
ary or suitable. 



HORNE TOOKE'S 

COMPARISON OF THE WIT OF CURRAN AND SHERIDAN. 



Mr. Horne Tooke, after having passed an evening: 
in the company of Mr. Curran and the late Mr. Sher- 
idan, whom he had, upon that occasion, for the first 
time, met together, was asked his opinion of the wit 
of each. He replied that ''Sheridan's was like steel 
highly polished, and sharpened for display and use; 
that Curran's was a mine of virgin gold, incessantly 
crumbling away from its own richness." 



MADAME DE STAEL'S 

ESTIMATE OF CURRAN'S COLLOQUIAL POWERS. 

The celebrated Madame De Stael, who, during her 
last residence in England, was surrounded by persons 
the most distinguished for talent, frequently observed 
that she had been most struck by the originality and 
variety of Mr. Currant's colloquial powers. This was 
in 1813, when his health and spirits were in a state of 
depression, which rendered the effort to support his 
part in such company a painful exertion. 

20 



LAST DAYS AND DEATH OF CURRAN. 



A FEW days before his last illness he dined with his 
friend, the late Mr. Thomas Thompson. After dinner 
he was for a while cheerful and animated, but some 
allusion having been made to Irish politics, he instantly 
hung down his head, and burst into tears. On the 7th 
of October, a swelling appeared over one of his eyes, 
to which, attributing it to cold, he gave little attention. 
On the night of the 8th, he was attacked by apoplexy. 
He was attended by two eminent physicians. Doctors 
Badham and Ainslie, and by Mr. Tegart, of Pall Mall, 
all of whom pronounced his recovery to be impossible. 
The utmost efforts of their skill could not protract his 
existence many days. Mr. Curran expired at nine 
o'clock at night on^the 14th of October, 1817, in the 
68th year of his age. During his short illness, he 
appeared entirely free from pain; he was speech- 
less from the commencement of the attack, and with 
the exception of a few intervals, quite insensible. His 
last minutes were so placid that those who watched 
over him could not mark the exact moment of expir- 
ation. Three of his children, his son-in-law, and 
daughter-in-law, and his old and attached friend, Mr. 
Godwin, surrounded his death-bed, and performed the 
last offices of piety and respect. 



PASSAGES AND ANECDOTES 



IN THE LIFE OF 



LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD 



It may not perhaps, appear altogether ill-timed to 
mention in this place, that when Lord Edward lay 
suffering under the fatal wounds of which he died in 
1798, a military man connected with government, who 
had known him at this time in Charleston, happening 
to allude, during a visit to him in prison, to the cir- 
cumstances under which they had first become ac- 
quainted, the gallant sufferer exclaimed — "Ah! I was 
wounded then in a very different cause; that was in 
fighting against liberty — this, in fighting /or it." 

It is, indeed, not a little striking that there should 
have been engaged at this time, on opposite sides, in 
America, twa noble youths, Lafayette and Lord Ed- 
ward Fitzgerald, whose political principles afterward 
so entirely coincided; and that, while one of them was 
fated soon to become the victim of an unsuccessful as- 
sertion of these principles, it has been the far brighter 
destiny of the other to contribute, more than once, 
splendidly to their triumph. 



LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD'S 

FIRST VIEW OF HIS FUTURE WIFE. 



Lord Edward being at one of the theatres of Paris, 
he saw, through a loge grillee near hinn, a face with 
which he was exceedingly struck, as well from its 
own peculiar beaut}^ as from the strong likeness the 
features bore to those of a lady, then some months 
dead, for whom he was known to have entertained a 
very affectionate regard. On inquiring who the young 
person was that had thus riveted his attention, he 
found it was no other than the very Pamela, of whose 
beauty he had heard so much — the adopted, or (as 
may now be said without scruple) actual daughter of 
Madame de Genlis by the Duke of Orleans. Instantly, 
all his prepossessions against the learned mother van- 
ished; an acquaintance, from that very night, I believe, 
commenced between them, and he was seldom after 
seen absent from the fair Pamela's side. 

In some natures, love is a fruit that ripens quickly; 
and that such was its growth in Lord Edward's warm 
heart the whole history of his life fully testifies. In 
the present instance, where there was so much to in- 
terest and attract on both sides, a liking felt by either 
could not fail to become reciprocal. The perfect dis- 
interestedness, too, of the young soldier, threw at 
once out of consideration a difficulty that might have 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 233 

checked more worldly suitors; and, in somewhat less 
than a month after their meeting at Paris, Made- 
moiselle Sims (the name by which Madame de Genlis 
liad chosen to designate her daughter) became Lady 
Edward Fitzgerald. 



EXHIBITION OF PERSONAL COURAGE 

BY 

LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD, 

There took place on the Curragh of Kildare, a well 
known rencontre between his lordship and some dragoon 
officers, which, — like most other well known anecdotes 
that the biographer has to inquire into, — receives from 
every new relater a wholly different form. The fol- 
lowing, however, are, as nearly as possible, the real 
circumstances of the transaction. Mr. Arthur O'Con- 
nor being at that time on a visit to his noble friend, 
they rode together, on one of the days of the races, 
to the Curragh, — Lord Edward having a green silk 
handkerchief round his neck. It was indeed his prac- 
tice, at all times (contrary to the usual custom of that 
day) to wear a colored silk neckcloth, — generally of 
that pattern which now bears the name of Belcher; 
but on the present occasion he chose to wear the na- 
tional, and at that time obnoxious color, green. 

At the end of the race, having left the stand house 

in a canter to return home, the two friends had not 

proceeded far before they found themselves overtaken 

by a party of from ten to a dozen officers, who, riding 

20* 



234 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

past them in full gallop, wheeled round, so as to ob- 
struct their passage, and demanded that lord Edward 
should take oft* his green cravat. Thus accosted, his 
lordship answered coolly, — "Your cloth would speak 
you to be gentlemen; but this conduct conveys a very 
different impression. As to this neckcloth that so 
offends you, all I can say is, — here I stand; let any 
man among you, who dares, come forward and take it 
off"." This speech, pronounced calmly and deliber- 
ately took his pursuers by surprise, and for a moment 
they look puzzled at each other, doubtful how to pro- 
ceed, when Mr. O'Connor, interposing, said, that if 
the officers chose to appoint two out of their number, 
Lord Edward and himself would be found ready to 
attend their summons at Kildare. The parties then 
separated, and during the two following days Lord 
Edward and his friend waited the expected message. 
But no further steps were taken by these military gen- 
tlemen, on whose conduct rather a significant verdict 
was passed at a Curragh ball, shortly after, when it 
was agreed, as I have heard, by all the ladies in the 
room,^ not to accept any of them as partners. 



MOORE'S RECOLLECTION 



FITZGERALD, 



With Lord Edward I could have no opportunity of 
forming any acquaintance, but remember (as if it had 
been but yesterday) having once seen him, in the year 
1797, in Grafton street, — when, on being told who h-e 
was, as he passed, I ran anxiously after him. desirous 
of another look at one, whose name had, from my 
school-days, been associated in my mind with all that 
was noble, patriotic and chivalrous. Though I saw 
him but this once, his peculiar dress, the elastic light- 
ness of his step, his fresh, healthful complexion, and 
the soft expression given to his eyes by their long dark 
eyelashes, are as present and familiar to my memory 
as if I had intimately known him. Little did I then 
think that, at an interval of four-and-thirty years from 
thence, — an interval equal to the whole span of his 
life at that period, — I should not only find myself the 
historian of his mournful fate, but (what to many will 
appear matter rather of shame than of boast) with 
feelings so little altered, either as to himself or his 
cause. 



LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD 



BOOT BLACK. 



The following anecdote, although in reference to an 
hunnble individual — a servant — exhibits our nature in 
its most amiable and enviable light. This accompani- 
ment of the lowest condition of human life with those 
virtues which constitute its brightest ornament, is a 
familiar, and well recognized trait of Irish character. 
The name should not have been neglected and lost of 
this poor man of virtue and of principle. The time of 
the occurrence was of course whilst Lord Edward lay 
in concealment previous to his arrest, and whilst the 
government officers were in pursuit of him. 

A pair of his (Lord Edward's) boots having been 
left outside his door to be cleaned, the man-servant to 
whom they had been given, for that purpose, told his 
mistress afterward that he knew 'Hvho the gentleman 
up stairs was; — but that she need not fear, for he would 
die to save him." He then showed her Lord Edward's 
name, written at full length in one of the boots. Think- 
ing it possible that after such a discovery, her guest 
might deem it dangerous to remain, Mrs. men- 
tioned the circumstance to him. But his fears were 
not easily awakened: — "What a noble fellow!" he ex- 
claimed, ''I should like to have some talk with him." 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 23T 

In the hope that it might be an incitement to the man's 
fidelity, the lady told him his lordship's wish; but he 
answered, "No, — I will not look at him — for, if they 
should take me up, I can then, you know, swear that 
I never saw him," 



THE ARREST 



LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD. 

As Mr. Murphy was standing within his gateway, 
there came a woman from Moore's with a bundle 
which, without saying a word, she put into his hands, 
and which, taking for granted that it was for Lord 
Edward, he carried up to his lordship. It was found 
to contain a coat, jacket, and trousers of dark green 
edged with red, together with a handsome military 
cap, of a conical form. At the sight of this uniform, 
which for the first time led him to suspect that a rising 
must be at hand, the fears of the already nervous host 
were redoubled; and on being desired by Lord Ed- 
ward to put it somewhere out of sight, he carried the 
bundle to a loft over one of his warehouses, and there 
hid it under some goatskins, whose offensiveness he 
thought, would be a security against search. 

About the middle of the day an occurrence took 
place, which, from its appearing to have some con- 
nexion with the pursuit after himself, excited a good 
deal of apprehension in his lordship's mind. A ser- 



238 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

geant-major, with a party of soldiers, had been seen 
to pass up the street, and were, at the moment when 
Murphy ran to apprize his guest of it, halting before 
Moore's door. This suspicious circumstance, indi- 
cating as it seemed, some knowledge of his haunts, 
startled Lord Edward, and he expressed instantly a 
wish to be put in some place of secrecy; on which 
Murphy took him out on the top of the house, and 
laying him down in one of the valleys formed be- 
tween the roofs of his warehouses, left him there for 
some hours. During the excitement produced in the 
neighborhood by the appearance of the soldiers, Lord 
Edward's officious friend Neilson was, in his usual 
flighty and inconsiderate manner, walking up and down 
the street, saying occasionally, as he passed, to Mur- 
phy, who was standing in his gateway — ''Is he safe?" 
"Look sharp." 

While this anxious scene was passing in one quarter, 
treachery — and it is still unknown from what source — 
was at work in another. It must have been late in 
the day that information of his lordship's hiding place 
reached the government, as Major Sirr did not leceive 
his instructions on the subject till but a few minutes 
before he proceeded to execute them. Major Swan 
and Mr. Ryan (the latter of whom volunteered his 
services) happened to be in his house at the moment; 
and he had but time to take a few soldiers, in plain 
clothes, along with him — purposing to send, on his 
arrival in Thomas-street, for the pickets of infantry 
and cavalry in that neighbourhood. 

To return to poor Lord Edward: — as soon as the 
alarm produced by the soldiers had subsided, he ven- 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 239 

turcd to leave his retreat, and resume his place in the 
back drawing room — where, Mr. Murphy having in- 
vited Neilson to join them, they soon after sat down 
to dinner. The cloth had not been many minutes re- 
moved, when Neilson, as if suddenly recollecting 
something, hurried out' of the room and left the house; 
shortly after which Mr. Murphy, seeing that his guest 
was not inclined to drink any wine, went down stairs. 
In a few minutes after, however, returning, he found 
that his lordship had, in the interim, gone up to his 
bedroom, and, on following him thither, saw him 
lying, without his coat, upon the bed. There had 
now elapsed from the time of Neilson's departure not 
more than ten minutes, and it is asserted that he had, 
in going out, left the hall-door open. 

Mr. Murphy had but just begun to ask his guest 
whether he would like some tea, when, hearing a 
trampling on the stairs, he turned round, and saAv 
Major Swan enter the room. Scarcely had this officer 
time to mention the object of his visit, when Lord Ed- 
ward jumped up, as Murphy describes him, "like a 
tiger," from the bed, on seeing which. Swan fired a 
small pocket-pistol at him, but without effect; and then, 
turning round short upon Murphy, from whom he 
seemed to apprehend an attack, thrust the pistol vio- 
lently in his face, saying to a soldier, who just then 
entered, "Take that fellow away." Almost at the 
same instant. Lord Edward struck at Swan with a 
dagger, which, it now appeared, he had in the bed 
with him; and immediately after, Ryan, armed only 
with a sword-cane, entered the room. 

In the meantime, Major Sirr, who had stopped 



240 GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

below to place the pickets round the house, hearing 
the report of Swan's pistol, hurried up to the landing, 
and from thence saw, within the room, Lord Edward 
struggling between Swan and Ryan, the latter down 
on the floor, weltering in his blood, and both clinging 
to their powerful adversary, who was now dragging 
them towards the door. Threatened, as he was, with 
a fate similar to that of his companions, Sirr had no 
alternative but to fire, and, aiming his pistol deliber- 
ately, he lodged the contents in Lord Edward's right 
arm, near the shoulder. The wound for a moment 
staggered him; but, as he again rallied, and was push- 
ing towards the door. Major Sirr called up the sol- 
diers; and so desperate were their captive's struggles, 
that they found it necessary to lay their firelocks across 
him before he could be disarmed or bound so as to 
prevent further mischief 

It was during one of these instinctive efforts of 
courage that the opportunity was, as I understand, 
taken by a wretched drummer to give him a wound in 
the back of the neck, which, though slight, yet, from 
its position, contributed not a little to aggravate the 
uneasiness of his last hours. There are also instances 
mentioned of rudeness, both in language and conduct, 
which he had to suffer while in this state from some of 
the minor tools of government, and which, even of 
such men, it is painful and difficult to believe. But so 
it is, 

"Curs snap at lions in the toils, whose looks 
Frighted them being free." 

It being understood that Doctor Adreen, a surgeon 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 241 

of much eminence, was in the neighborhood, messen- 
gers were immediately despatched to fetch him, and 
his attention was called to the state of the three com- 
batants. The wounds of Major Swan, though nu- 
merous, were found not to be severe; but Mr. Ryan 
was in a situation that gave but little hope of re- 
covery. When, on examining Lord Edward's wound, 
Adreen pronounced it not to be dangerous, his lord- 
ship calmly answered, ^Tm sorry for it.'' 



OPINIONS OF EMINENT MEN 

ON THE CHARACTER OF 

LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD. 

"Laudari a viro laudato." 

I KNEW Fitzgerald but very little^ but I honor and ven- 
erate his character which he has uniform^ly sustained, 
and in this last instance, illustrated. What miserable 
wretches by his side are the gentry of Ireland! I 
would rather be Fitzgerald, as he is now, wounded in 
his dungeon, than Pitt at the head of the British em- 
pire. What a noble fellow! Of the first family in 
Ireland, with an easy fortune, a beautiful wife and a 
family of lovely children, the certainty of a splendid 
appointment under government if he would condescend 
to support their measures, he has devoted himself 
wholly to the emancipation of his country, and sacri- 
ficed every thing to it, even to his blood." — Diary of 
Theobald Wolfe Tone. 
21 



242 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

As I suspected, the brave and unfortunate Fitzgerald 
was meditating an attack on the capitol, which was to 
have taken place a few days after that on which he 
was arrested. He is since dead in prison; his career 
is finished gloriously for himself, and whatever be the 
event, his memory will live forever, in the heart of 
every honest Irishman. — Ibid. 



Sir J. ParnelL Mr. Emmet, while you and the ex- 
ecutive were philosophizing. Lord Edward Fitzgerald 
was arming and disciplining the people. 



Emmet. Lord Edward was a military man, and if 
he was doing so, he probably thought that was the way 
in which he could be most useful to the country; but I 
am sure that if those with whom he acted were con- 
vinced that the grievances of the people were redressed, 
and that force was become unnecessary, he would have 
been persuaded to drop all arming and disciplining. 



Mr. J. C. Beresford. I knew Lord Edward well, 
and always found him very obstinate. 



Emmet. I knew Lord Edward right well, and have 
done a great deal of business with him, and have al- 
ways found, when he had a reliance on the integrity' 
and talents of the person he acted with, he was one of 
the most persuadable men alive; but if he thought a 
man meant dishonestly or unfairly by him, he was las 
obstinate as a mule. — Report of Evidence before the 
Secret Committee of the House of Commons. 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 243 

The Irish nation could not sustain a greater misfor- 
tune in the person of anyone individual than befel it in 
the loss of Fitzgerald at that critical moment. Even 
his enemies, and he had none but those of his country, 
allowed him to possess distinguished military talents. 
With these, with unquestioned intrepidity, republican- 
ism, and devotion to Ireland, with popularity that gave 
him unbounded influence, and integrity that made him 
worthy of the highest trust, had he been present in the 
Irish camp to organize discipline, and give to the valor 
of his countrv a scientific direction, we should have 
seen the slaves of monarchy fly before the republicans 
of Ireland, as they did before the patriots of America. 
And if at last the tears of his countrymen had been con- 
strained to lament his fate they would have been re- 
ceived on the laurels of his tomb. — Dr, Macneven. 



If Lord Edward had been actuated in political life, 
by dishonorable ambition, he had only to cling to his 
great family connexions and parliamentary influence. 
They unquestionably would have advanced his fortunes 
and gratified his desires. The voluntary sacrifices he 
made, and the magnanimous manner in which he de- 
voted himself to the independence of Ireland, are in- 
contestible proofs of the purity of his soul. — Ibid. 



Lord Edward had served with reputation, in the 
nineteenth regiment during a great part of the Ameri- 
can war, and on many occasions had displayed great 
valor and considerable abilities as an officer. When 
in the army he was considered as a man of honor and 
humanity, and was much esteemed by his brother offi- 



244 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

cersfor his frankness, courage and good nature — quali- 
ties which he was supposed to possess in a very high 
degree. — Sir Richard Musgrave^ History of the Irish 
Rebellion. 



Lord Edward Fitzgerald, whose name I never men- 
tion without anxiety and grief, and of whom I wish 
to speak with as mucli tenderness as possible. — Speech 
of the Attorney General ( Toler) on Sondes Trial, 



The allusion in the following passage of Mr. Cur- 
ran's speech, to the amiable character of Lord Edward 
Fitzgerald, will lose much of its force to those who 
have heard nothing of that unfortunate nobleman except 
his fate. His private excellencies were so conspicuous 
that the officer of the crown, who moved for leave to 
bring in the bill of attainder, could not refrain from 
bearing ample testimony to them: "His political of- 
fences he could not mention without grief; and, were 
it consistent with the principles of public justice, he 
would wish that the recording angel should let fall a 
tear and wash them out for ever." — Curran'^s Life^ by 
his son. 



But ere we fight, go call at Edward's tomb, cry in 
his ears, bid him who sleeps to wake, bid him to rise 
and fight his enemies. Brave as the lion, gentler than 
the lamb, the sparkling jewel of an ancient house, the 
noblest blood of any in our land ran through his veins. 
He hears you not; he sleeps to wake no more! Of all 
his country, and of all he owned, there rests no more 
to him than the cold grave he lies in! 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 245 

Oh gallant, gallant Edward! fallen in the flower of 
youth and pride of manly beauty; had you lived to see 
your country free, the proudest conqueror that wears 
a sword dared not invade it. 

Go call his children -by their noble sire to come and 
fight the battles of their country. What sire? What 
country? They have no father, for you murdered 
him! They have no country but the green sod that 
rests upon his grave! You robbed their guiltless in- 
fancy^ tainted their innocent blood, plundered their 
harmless cradles. — From the Memoirs of Wm, Sampson. 



There is, however, one among the many tributes to 
his military character, which it would be unjust to 
omit, — that of the celebrated Mr. William Cobbett, 
who was, at the time of which we are speaking, ser- 
jeant-major of the 54th, and had even then, it is said, 
made himself distinguished by the vigor of his talents. 
To Lord Edward's kindness, Mr. Cobbett owed his 
subsequent discharge from the army;* and, in the year 
1800, as he himself tells us, while dining one day with 
Mr. Pitt, on being asked by that statesman some ques- 
tions respecting his former officer, he answered, that 
''Lord Edward was a most humane and excellent man, 
and the only really honest officer he ever knew in the 
army." 

* "I got my discharge from the army by the great kindness of 
poor Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who was then major of my regi- 
ment." — CobhetVs Advice to Young Men. 



21* 



RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 



SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. 



It was the fate of Mr. Sheridan, through life, — and, 
in a great degree, perhaps, his policy, — to gain credit 
for excessive indolence and carelessness, while few 
persons, with so much natural brilliancy of talents, ever 
employed more art and circumspection in their display. 
This was the case, remarkably, in the instance before 
us. Notwithstanding the labor which he bestowed 
upon this comedy, (or we should rather, perhaps, say 
in consequence of that labor,) the first representation 
of the piece was announced before the whole of the 
copy was in the hands of the actors. The manuscript, 
indeed, of the five last scenes bears evident marks of 
this haste in finishing, — there being but one rough 
draught of them, scribbled upon detached pieces of 
paper; while, of all the preceding acts, there are nu- 
merous transcripts, scattered promiscuously through 
six or seven books, with new interlineations and mem- 
orandums to each. On the last leaf of all, which exists 
just as we may suppose it to have been despatched by 
him to the copyist, there is the following curious speci- 
men of doxology, written hastily, in the hand-writing 
of the respective parties at the bottom: — 
"Finished at last, thank God! 

'^R. B. Sheridan. 

"Amen! 

"W. Hopkins.''* 

* The promptor. 



MR. SHERIDAN'S 

FIRST SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT. 

He made his first speech in parliament on the 20th of 
November 1780, when a petition was presented to the 
house, complaining of the undue election of the sitting 
members (himself and Mr. Monckton) for Stafford. It 
was rather lucky for him that the occasion w^as one in 
which he felt personally interested, as it took away 
much of that appearance of anxiety for display, which 
might have attended his first exhibition upon any gen- 
eral subject. The fame, however, which he had already 
acquired by his literary talents, was sufficient, even on 
this question, to awaken all the curiosity and expecta- 
tion of his audience; and accordingly we are told in 
the report of his speech, that ^'he was heard with par- 
ticular attention, the house being uncommonly still 
while he was speaking." The indignation, which he 
expressed on this occasion at the charges brought by 
the petition against the electors of Stafford, was coolly 
turned into ridicule by Mr. Rigby, paymaster of the 
forces. But Mr. Fox, whose eloquence was always 
ready at the call of good-nature, and, like the shield of 
Ajax, had "ample room and verge enough," to protect 
not only himself but his friends, came promptly to the 
aid of the young orator; and, in reply to Mr. Rigby, 
observed, that "though those ministerial members, who 
chiefly robbed and plundered their constituents, might 



248 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

afterwards affect to despise them, yet gentlemen who felt 
properly the nature of the trust allotted to them, would 
always treat them and speak of them with respect." 

It was on this night, as Woodfall used to relate, that 
Mr. Sheridan, after he had spoken, came up to him in 
the gallery, and asked, with much anxiety, what he 
thought of his first attempt. The answer of Woodfall, 
as he had the courage afterwards to own, was, "I am 
sorry to say I do not think that this is your line — you 
had much better have stuck to your former pursuits." 
On hearing which, Sheridan rested his head upon his 
hand for a few minutes, and then vehemently ex- 
claimed, "It is in me, however, and, by G — , it shall 
come out." 



SHERIDAN 

AND 

MR. PAYMASTER RIGBY. 

Mr. Rigby, who was paymaster of the forces, spoke 
generally against the war with America, but voted in 
favor of it. Mr. Sheridan in one of his speeches ad- 
verted to this circumstance in the following felicitous 
manner. 

"The right honorable gentleman, however, had acted 
in this day's debate with perfect consistency. He had 
assured the house that he thought the noble lord ought 
to resign his office, and yet he would give his vote for 
his remaining in it. In the same manner he had long 
declared, that he thought the American war ought to 



GEMS OF JRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 249 

be abandoned, yet he bad uniformly given his vote for 
its continuance. He did not mean, however, to insin- 
uate any motives for such conduct; — he believed the 
right honorable gentleman to have been sincere; he 
believed that as a member of parliament, as a privy 
counsellor, as a private gentleman, he had always de- 
tested, the American war as much as any man, but that 
he had never been able to persuade the paymaster that 
it was a bad war; and unfortunately in whatever char- 
acter he spoke, it was the paymaster who always 
voted in that house." 



MR. SHERIDAN'S SPEECH 

UPON THE CHARGE RELATIVE TO THE 

BEGUM PRINCES OF OUDE. 

On the 7th day of February, 1787, Mr. Sheridan de- 
livered his celebrated speech upon the above subject. 
The following are the expressed opinions of those 
who heard it, as to its transcendant merit. 



Mr. Burke declared it to be "the most astonishing 
effort of eloquence, argument and wit united, of which 
there was any record or tradition." 

m 

Mr. Fox said, "All that he had ever heard, all that 
he had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled 
into nothing, and vanished like vapor before the sun." 



250 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

Mr. Pitt acknowledged "that it surpassed all the 
eloquence of ancient and modern times, and possessed 
every thing that genius or art could furnish to agitate 
and control the human mind." 



There were several other tributes of a less distin- 
guished kind, of which I find the following account in 
the Annual Register: 

"Sir William Dolbin immediately moved an adjourn- 
ment of the debate, confessing that in the state of mind 
in which Mr. Sheridan's speech had left him, it was 
impossible for him to give a determinate opinion. Mr. 
Stanhope seconded the motion. When he had entered 
the house he was not ashamed to acknowledge that 
his opinion inclined to the side of Mr. Hastings. But 
such had been the wonderful efficacy of Mr. Sheridan's 
convincing detail of facts, and irresistible eloquence, 
that he could not but say that his sentiments were 
materially changed. Nothing, indeed, but information 
almost equal to a miracle could determine him not to 
vote for the charge; but he had just felt the influence 
of such a miracle, and he could not but ardently desire 
to avoid an immediate decision. Mr. Matthew Mon- 
tagu confessed that he had felt a similar revolution of 
sentiment." 



The late Mr. Logan, well known for his literary 
efforts, and author of a most masterly defence of Mr. 
Hastings, went that dajf to the house of commons, pre- 
possessed for the accused and against his accuser. 
At the expiration of the first hour he said to a friend, 
"All this is declamatory assertion without proof;" 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 251 

when the second was finished, "This is a most won- 
derful oration;" at the close of the third, "Mr Hast- 
ings has acted very unjustifiably;" the fourth, "Mr. 
Hastings is a most atrocious criminal," and at last, 
"Of all monsters of iniquity the most enormous is 
Warren Hastings!" 



Mr. Burke's opinion on Sheridan's speech on bring- 
ing forward in Westminster Hall the articles of im- 
peachment against Warren Hastings: "Of all the 
various species of oratory, of every kind of eloquence 
that had been heard, either in ancient or modern times; 
whatever the acuteness of the bar, the dignity of the 
senate, or the morality of the pulpit could furnish, had 
not been equal to what that house had that day wit- 
nessed in Westminster Hall. No holy religionist, no 
man of any description as a literary character, could 
have come up, in the one instance, to the pure senti- 
ments of morality, or in the other, to the variety of 
knowledge, force of imagination, propriety and vivacity 
of allusion, beauty and elegance of diction, arid strength 
of expression, to which they had that day listened. 
From poetry up to eloquence there was not a species 
of composition of which a complete and perfect speci- 
men might not have been culled, from one part or the 
other of the speech to which he alluded, and which, 
he was persuaded, had left too strong an impression 
on the minds of that house to be easily obliterated." 



Mr. Gibbons, in his memoirs, says, "Before my 
departure from England I was present at the august 
spectacle of Mr. Hastings' trial, in Westminster Hall. 



252 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

It is not my province to absolve or condemn the gov- 
ernor of India; but Mr. Sheridan's eloquence demanded 
my applause, nor could I hear without emotion, the 
personal compliment which he paid me in the presence 
of the British nation." 



SHERIDAN AND RICHARDSON. 

The disputatious humor of Richardson was once turned 
to account by Sheridan in a very characteristic man- 
ner. Having had a hackney coach in employ for five 
or six hours, and not being provided with the means 
of paying it, he happened to espy Richardson in the 
street, and proposed to take him in the coach some 
part of his way. The offer being accepted, Sheridan 
lost no time in starting a subject of conversation, on 
which he knew his companion was sure to become 
argumentative and animated. Having, by well-managed 
contradiction, brought him to the proper pitch of ex- 
citement, he affected to grow impatient and angry 
himself, and saying that he could not think of staying 
in the same coach with a person that would use such 
language," pulled the check-string, and desired the 
coachman to let him out. Richardson, wholly occu- 
pied with the argument, and regarding the retreat of 
his opponent as an acknowledgment of defeat, still 
pressed his point, and even hallooed "more last words" 
through the coach-window after Sheridan, who, walk- 
ing quietly home, left the poor disputant responsible 
for the heavy fare of the coach. 



LORD BYRON'S OPINION OF SHERIDAN. 



^' Saturday^ December 18, 1813. 
"Lord Holland told me a curious piece of senti- 
mentality in Sheridan. The other night we were all 
delivering our respective and various opinions on him 
and other 'hommes marquans^'^ and mine was this: 
'Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen tb do, has 
been par excellence^ always the best of its kind. He 
has written the best comedy, (School for Scandal,) the 
best opera, (the Duenna — in my mind before that St. 
Giles' lampoon, the Beggar's Opera,) the best farce, 
(the Critic — it is only too good for an after-piece,) and 
the best address, (Monologue on Garrick,) — and, to 
crown all, delivered the very best oration, (the famous 
Begum Speech,) ever conceived, or heard in this coun-" 
try.' Somebody told Sheridan this the next day, and 
on hearing it, he burst into tears! — Poor Brinsley! If 
they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said 
those few, but sincere words, than have written the 
Iliad, or made his own celebrated Philippic. Nay, his 
own comedy never gratified me more than to hear that 
he had derived a moment's gratification from any 
praise of mine — humble as it must appear to 'my 
elders and my betters.' " 

22 



SHERIDAN'S DISTRESSES. 



The distresses of Sheridan now increased every day, 
and through the short remainder of his life it is a 
melancholy task to follow him, the sum arising from 
the sale of his theatrical property, was soon exhausted 
by the various claims upon it, and he was driven to 
part with* all that he most valued to satisfy further de- 
mands, and provide for the subsistence of the day. 
Those books which, as I have already mentioned, were 
presented to him by various friends, now stood in their 
splendid bindings, on the shelves of the pawnbroker. 
The handsome cup, given him by the electors of Staf- 
ford, shared the same fate. Three or four fine pic* 
tures by Gainsborough, and one by Morland, were 
sold for little more than five hundred pounds; and even 
the precious portrait of his first wife, by Reynolds, 
though not actually sold during his life, vanished away 
from his eyes into other hands. 

One of the most humiliating trials of his pride was 
yet to come. In the spring of this year he was ar- 
rested and carried to a spunging-house, where he re- 
mained two or three days. This abode formed a sad 
contrast to those princely halls, of which he had so 
lately been the most brilliant and favored guest^ and 
which were possibly, at that very moment, lighted up 
and crowded with gay company, unmindful of him 
within those prison walls. 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 255 

Even in this situation the sanguineness of his disposi- 
tion did not desert him, for he was found by Mr. Whit- 
bread, on his visit to the spunging-house, confidently 
calculating on the representation for Westminster, in 
which the proceedings relative to Lord Cochrane at 
that moment promised a vacancy. On his return home, 
however, to Mrs. Sheridan, (some arrangements having 
been made by Whitbread for his release,) all his for- 
titude forsook him, and he burst into a long and pas- 
sionate fit of weeping at the profanation, as he termed 
it, which his person had suffered. 



THE LAST DAYS OF MR. SHERIDAN. 

The splendid and glorious career of poor Sheridan 
closed in penury, and destitution: he expired aban- 
doned, and unvisited by a solitary individual of that 
thick array of titles, and nobility, that crowded in pa- 
geantry, around the hearse that bore to their resting 
place his earthly remains. So forlorn was his condi- 
tion that he was arrested, dying in his bed, and, but 
for the interference of his physician, would have been 
carried in that state to a spunging-house. To these 
circumstances in his history the following lines bear 
allusion. Although characterized, by the modest au- 
thor as anonymous, their sweetness, brilliancy and 
polish clearly indicate them as springing from Erin's 
favorite, and most highly favored muse. 



256 GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

"Oh it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow, 
And friendships so false in the great and high bom; — 

To think what a long line of Titles may follow 
The relics of him who died friendless and lorn! 

"How proud they can press to the funeral array, 

Of him whom they shunn'd, in his sickness and sorrow — 

How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day. 
Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrowl" 

The anonymous writer thus characterises the talents 
of Sheridan: — 

"Was this then tlie fate of that high-gifted man, 
The pride of the palace, the bower, and the hall — 

The orator, dramatist, minstrel, — ^who ran 

Through each mode of tlie lyre, and was master of all. 

"Wliose mind was an essence compounded, with art. 
From the finest and best of all other men's powers; — 

Who rul'd, like a wizard, ihe world of the heart. 

And could call up its sunshine, or draw down its showers; — 

"Whose humor, as gay as tlie fire-fly's light, 
Play'd round every subject and shone, as it play'd; — 

Whose wit, in the combat as gentle as bright, 
Ne'er carried a heart stain away on it's blade; — 

"Whose eloquence brightening whatever it tried, 
Whether reason or fancy, the gay or the grave» 

Was as rapid, as deep, and as brilliant a tide. 
As ever bore Freedom aloft on its wave!" 



SHERIDAN AND MR. DUNDAS. 



In reply to Mr. Dundas, in the house of commons, 
Sheridan observed "The right honorable gentleman is 
indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his fancy 
for his facts." 



SHERIDAN'S CHARACTER. 

Mr. Moore says: "let it never, too, be forgotten, in 
estimating his character, that had he been less consis- 
tent and disinterested in his public conduct, he might 
haye commanded the means of being independent and 
respectable in private. He iright have died a rich 
apostate, instead of closing a life of patriotism in beg- 
gary. He might, (to use a fine expression of his own^) 
have "hid his head in a coronet," instead of earning 
for it biH the barren wreath of public gratitude. While, 
therefore, we admire the great sacrifice that he made, 
let us be tolerant to the errors and imprudences which 
it entailed upon him; and, recollecting how vain it is 
to look for any thing unalloyed in this world, rest 
satisfied wath the Martyr, without requiring also, the 
Saint" 



22* 



THEOBALD WOLFE TONE. 



TONE'S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH HOCHE. 



1796, July 12. Battle of Jlughrim, As I was sitting 
in my cabinet, studying my tactics, a person knocked 
at the door, who, on opening it, proved to be a dra- 
goon of the third regiment. He brought me a note 
from Clarke, informing me that the person he men- 
tioned was arrived, and desired to see me at one 
o'clock. I ran off directly to the Luxembourg, and 
was shewed into Fleury's cabinet, where I remained 
till three, when the door opened, and a very handsome 
well made young fellow, in a brown coat and nankeen 
pantaloons, entered, and said "Fom5 vous etes le citoyen 
SmithT'^* I thought he was a chef de bureau, and x^- 
pWedy ^^ Oui^ citoyeriy je m^appelle Smith.'^^f He said, 
^'Vous vous appelez^ aussi^je crois Wolfe ToneV^X Ire- 
plied, '^Oui^ citoyeiij cest mon veritable nom,'''^^ ^^Eh 
bieriy'*'^ replied he, "je suis le General Hochey\\ At these 
Avords I mentioned that I had for a long time been de- 
sirous of the honor I then enjoyed, to find myself in 
his company; ^^Into his arms I soon did fiy^ and there 
embraced him tenderly,'*'^ He then said he presumed I 
was the author of the memorandums which had been 

* You are citizen Smith. f Yes, citizen, I call myself Smith. 

X You are called also, I think, Wolfe Tone. 

§ Yes, citizen, that is my true name. || Well! / am General Hoche. 



GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 259 

transmitted to him. I said I was. Well, said he, there 
are one or two points 1 want to consult you on. He 
then proceeded to ask me, in case of the landing being 
effectuated, might he rely on finding provisions, and 
particularly bread? I said it would be impossible to 
make any arrangements in Ireland, previous to the 
landing, because of the surveillance of ihe Government, 
but if that were once accomplished, there would be no 
want of provisions; that Ireland abounded in cattle, 
and, as for bread, I saw by the Gazette that there was 
not only no deficiency of corn, but that she was able 
to supply England, in a great degree, during the late 
alarming scarcity in that country, and I assured him, 
that if the French were once in Ireland, he might rely 
that, whoever wanted bread, they should not want it. 
He seemed satisfied with this, and proceeded to ask 
me, might we count upon being able to form a provi- 
sory Government, either of the Catholic Committee, 
mentioned in my memorials, or of the chiefs of the 
Defenders? I thought I saw an opening here, to come at 
the number of troops intended for us, and replied, that 
that would depend on the force which might be landed; 
if that force were but trifling, I could not pretend to 
say how they might act, but if it was considerable, I 
had no doubt of their co-operation. "Undoubtedly," 
replied he, "men will not sacrifice themselves, when 
they do not see a reasonable prospect of support; but, 
if I go, you may be sure I will go in sufficient force." 
He then asked, did I think ten thousand men would 
decide them? I answered, undoubtedly, but that early 
in the business the Minister had spoken to me of two 
thousand, and that I had replied that such a number 



260 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

could effect nothing. • No, replied he, they would be 
overwhelmed before any one could join them. I re- 
plied I was glad to hear him give that opinion, as it 
was precisely what I had stated to the Minister, and I 
repeated that, with the force he mentioned, I could 
have no doubt of support and co-operation sufficient to 
form a provisory Government. He then asked me 
what I thought of the Priests, or was it likely they 
would give us any trouble.? I replied I certainly did 
not calculate on their assistance, but neither did I think 
tbey would be able to give us any effectual opposition; 
that their influence over the minds of the common 
people was exceedingly diminished of late, and I in- 
stanced the case of the Defenders, so often mentioned 
in my memorials, and in these memorandums. I ex- 
plained all this, at some length, to him, and concluded 
by saying, that, in prudence, we should avoid as much 
as possible shocking their prejudices unnecessarily, and 
that, with common discretion, I thought we might 
secure their neutrality at least, if not their support. I 
mentioned this merely as my opinion, but added that, 
in the contrary event, I was satisfied it would be abso- 
lutely impossible for them to take the people out of 
our hands. We then came to the army. He asked me 
how I thought they would act.? I replied, for the re- 
gulars I could not pretend to say, but that they were 
wretched bad troops; for the militia, I hoped and 
believed that when we were once organized, they 
would not only not oppose us, but come over to the 
cause of their country en masse; nevertheless, I de- 
sired him to calculate on their opposition, and make 
his arrangements accordingly; that it was the safe 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 261 

policy, and if it become necessary, it was so much 
gained. He said he would, undoubtedly, make his 
arrangements so as to leave nothing to chance that 
could be guarded against; that he would come in force, 
and bring great quantities of arms, ammunition, stores, 
and artillery, and, for his own reputation, see that all 
the arrangements were made on a proper scale. I was 
very glad to hear him speak thus; it set my mind at 
ease on divers points. He then said there was one 
important point remaining, on which he desired to be 
satisfied, and that was what form of Government we 
would adopt on the event of our success.^ I was going 
to answer him with great earnestness, when General 
Clarke entered, to request we would come to dinner 
with citizen Carnot. We accordingly adjourned the 
conversation to the apartment of the President, where 
we found Carnot and one or two more. Hoche, after 
some time, took me aside and repeated his question. I 
replied, "most undoubtedly, a republic." He asked 
again, "was I sure?" I said as sure as I could be of 
any thing; that I knew nobody in Ireland who thought 
of any other system, nor did I believe there was any 
body who dreamt of monarchy. He asked me, was 
there no danger of the Catholics setting up one of 
their chiefs for king? I replied, "not the smallest," 
and that there were no chiefs amongst them of that 
kind of eminence. This is the old business again, but 
I believe I satisfied Hoche, it looks well to see him so 
anxious on that topic, on which he pressed me more 
than on all the others. Carnot joined us here, with a 
pocket map of Ireland in his hand, and the conversa* 
tion became pretty general between Clarke, Hoche, 



262 GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

and him, every one else having left the room. I said 
scarcely any thing, as I wished to listen. Hoche re- 
lated to Carnot the substance of what had passed be- 
tween him and me. When he mentioned his anxiety 
as to bread, Carnot laughed, and said, "there is plenty 
of beef in Ireland; if you cannot get bread, you must 
eat beef." I told him I hoped they would find enough 
of both; adding, that within the last twenty years Ire- 
land had become a great corn country, so that, at pre- 
sent, it made a considerable article in her exports. 
They then proceeded to confer, but I found it difficult 
to follow them, as it was in fact a suite of former con- 
versations, at which I had not assisted, and besides, 
they spoke with the rapidity of Frenchmen. I col- 
lected, however, if I am right, that there will be two 
landings, one from Holland, near Belfast, and the other 
from Britanny, in Connaught; that there will be, I sup- 
pose, in both embarkations, not less than ten, nor more 
than fifteen thousand men; twelve thousand was also 
mentioned, but I did not hear any time specified. Car- 
not said "it will be, to be sure, a most brilliant opera- 
tion.'' And well may he say so, if he succeeds. We 
then went to dinner, which was very well served, 
without being luxurious. We had two courses, and a 
desert. There were present about sixteen or eighteen 
persons, Madame Carnot, her sister, and sister-in-law, 
Carnot, his brother, Hoche, Truguet, the Minister of 
Marine, Clarke, two or three officers, and Lagarde, 
the Secretaire General. I sat by Hoche. After coffee 
was served, we rose, and Carnot, Hoche, Truguet, 
Lacuee, and Clarke, retired to a cabinet and held a 
council on Irish affairs, which lasted from six to nine 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 263 

o'clock. In the meantime, I walked with Lagarde in 
the gardens of the Luxembourg, where we listened to 
a symphony performed in the apartments of La Re- 
veilliere Lepaux, who is lodged over Carnot. Legarde 
^tells me that La Reveilliere has concerts continually, 
and that music is his great resource after the fatigues of 
his business, which are immense. At nine the council 
broke up, and I walked away with Clarke; he said 
every thing was now settled, and that he had himself 
much trouble to bring every thing to bear, but that at 
last he had succeeded. I wished him joy, most sin- 
cerely, and fixing to call upon him to-morrow at 
twelve, we parted. This was a grand day; I dined 
with the president of the executive directory of France, 
beyond all comparison the most illustrious station in 
Europe. I am very proud of it, because it has come 
fairly in the line of my duty, and I have made no un- 
worthy sacrifices to obtain it. I like Carnot ex- 
tremely, and Hoche, I think, yet better. 



A SHORT LIFE OF TONE, 

FROM THE PEN OF 

COUNSELLOR SAMPSON. 

Theobald Wolfe Tone was born June 20, 1763. 
Ilis grand-father was a Protestant freeholder in the 
county of Kildare; his father a coach-maker in Dub- 
lin. His infancy gave promise of such talents, that 
the cultivation of his mind was considered the best 
fortune his parents could bestow. 



264 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

He studied in the university of Dublin, where he 
was early and eminently distinguished; in the Histori- 
cal Society he twice carried off the prize of oratory, 
once that of history; and the speech he delivered from 
the chair, when auditor, was deemed the most finished 
on the records of th^ society. 

During his attendance on the inns of court in Lon- 
don, he had opportunities of comparing the state of 
the English nation with that of his own; of perceiving 
all the advantages of a national^ and the degradation 
of a colonial government; and there imbibed that prin- 
ciple which governed him through the remainder of 
his life, and to which his life was at length a sacrifice. 
In the year 1790, on his return from the temple, he 
wrote his first pamphlet, under the signature of an 
Irish Whig^ where he thus declared his principles: "/ 
am no occasional whig; 1 am no constitutional tory; I 
am addicted to no party hut the party of the nation?"* 

This work was republished by the Northern Whig 
Club, and read with great avidity; and the writer was 
called upon to avow himself; which he did, and be- 
came a member of that body. 

He was complimented also by the whigs of Dublin. 
They proposed putting him in parliament, and Mr. 
George Ponsonby employed him professionally on his 
election and petition. 

In the same year he wrote, ^^an enquiry^ how far 
Ireland is bound to support England in the approaching 
war^'*'* wherein he openly broached his favorite question 
of separation; and in 1791, the Argument on behalf of 
the Catholics^ a work of extraordinary merit. 

It is remarkable, that at that time he was scarcely 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 265 

acquainted with any one Catholic, so great was the se- 
paration which barbarous institutions had created 
between men of the same nation, formed by nature to 
befriend and love each other. 

The Catholics struck with admiration at this noble 
and disinterested effort of a stranger, repaid him by 
the best compliment in their power to bestow; he was 
invited to become secretary to their committee, with a 
salary of two hundred pounds ^ which he accepted. 

He was entrusted to draw up their petition; a mark 
of liberal distinction, and honorable to the Catholic 
body, as there were not wanting amongst themselves 
men of transcendant talents; and he accompanied their 
delegates when they presented it to the king. 

The Catholic convention voted him their thanks, a 
gold medal, dmd fifteen hundred pounds! 

Being so honorably identified with the great body of 
his countrymen, his next efforts were directed to the 
bringing about a union between the Catholics and Dis- 
senters of the North. In this he was seconded by the 
enlightened of both parties, and succeeded to the 
extent of his wishes. 

The favorite project of the Dissenters was parlia- 
mentary reform; that of the Catholics, naturally, their 
own emancipation. He rallied them both upon the 
wicked absurdity of their past dissensions; upon the 
happy prospects of future union; showing, that the 
restoration of the Catholics to the elective franchise, 
was the best security for parliamentary reform, and 
how insignificant all reform must be, which excluded 
four-fifths of a nation! 
23 



266 GEBIS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

In 1795, he again accompanied the delegates with 
their petition on the subject of the recall of lord 
Fitz- William; and when he resigned his office of sec- 
retary to retire to America, the society voted him their 
thanks, with a further compliment of three hundred 
pounds for services which they said, "no consideration 
could over-rate, nor no remuneration over-pay.'' 

The remainder of his political life cannot be better 
understood, than by reading his speech to the court- 
martial, met to pass judgment on his life. At the time 
he withdrew from Ireland, I was but little concerned 
in politics, but admired him for the brilliancy and 
great variety of his conversation, the gay and social 
cast of his disposition. I loved him more because I 
thought him an honest man; and although it has been 
his fate to suffer as a traitor, I have not changed my 
mind. And after the hideous treasons we have just 
passed in review, it is grateful to find one treason at 
last founded upon principles of Christian charity, phi- 
losophy and reason. Tone was the founder of that 
imion amongst ^^Irishmen of every religious persuasion^'^'^ 
first adopted in Belfeist, and afterwards throughout the 
kingdom, and in opposition to which, the governing 
faction set up the principles of a plundering mob, 
called ^^peep'Of 'day-hoys ^'"^ since called for more dis- 
tinction " Om7igemen," and raised to such a pre-emi- 
nence, that they now govern the councils in England 
and the conscience of the king, by the style and title of 
^■no PoperyV But when upon the altar of Union and 
reconciliation were ofi'ercd up the lives of the most 
virtuous Irishmen of "ofW religious persuasions ^^^ and 



GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 267 

(hat altar was cemented with their commingled blood, 
there was a trophy erected to the memory of Tone, 
more durable than brass or marble, and which neither 
terror, corruption, nor time itself, can shake."* 



MR. MONROE, AND MR, TONE. 

JiJly, 1796. Dinner at Monroe's. Very pleasant. 
Mrs. Monroe, a pretty little woman, with very white 
teeth. After dinner, went with Monroe into his cabi- 
net. He tells me he is just now poor, but he offered 
to supply me to the amount of £50, in sums of ten or 
fifteen, as I might want it, or else desired me to go to 
Skipwith, the consul for the United States, and see if 
he would give me cash, for my bill on Philadelphia, 
which he would guarantee, or for one to the same 
amount on himself, at a shoit date, which he would 
accept. He offered me at the same time, ten louis, for 
my current expenses. All this is very handsome in 
Monroe. 

* So true it is, that no religious party was excluded from this 
Union, that the established church furnished the greatest proportion 
of those victims with whom government broke faith, and who were 
secluded in the dungeons of Fort George; and of twenty that were 
there, four only were Catholics; so little was this rebellion a war of 
popery. 



"A GLOOMY CATALOGUE." 



June, 1798. I (Tone) have been running over in my 
mind the list of my friends, and of the men whom, 
without being so intimately connected with them, I 
most esteem. Scarcely do I find one w-ho is not or has 
not been in exile or prison, and in jeopardy of his life. 
To begin with Russell and Emmett, the two dearest 
of my friends, at this moment in prison on a capital 
charge. M'Neven and J. Sweetman, my old fellow- 
laborers in the Catholic cause; Edward Fitzgerald, 
Arthur and Roger O'Connor, w^hom, though I know 
less personally, I do not less esteem; Sampson, Bond, 
Jackson and his son, still in prison; Robert and Wil- 
liam Simms, the men in the w^orld to whose friendship 
I am most obliged, but just discharged; N'eilson, Haz- 
litt, M'Cracken, the same; M'Cormick, absconded; 
Rowan and Dr. Reynolds in America; Lewines, Ten- 
nant, Low^y, Hamilton, Teeling, Tandy, &c. and 
others, with whom I have little or no acquaintance, but 
whom I must presume to be victims of their patriot- 
ism, not to speak of my ow^n family in France, Ger- 
many, and elsewhere. Slokes disgraced on suspicion 
of virtue. It is a gloomy catalogue for a man to cast 
his eyes over. Of all my political connections I see 
but John Keogh who has escaped, and how he has had 
that inconceivable good fortune, is to me a miracle. 



DEATH OF TONE. 

WRITTEN BY HIS SON". 



On the next day, 12th November, (the day fixed for 
his execution,) the scene in the court of king's bench 
was awful and impressive to the highest degree. As 
soon as it opened, Curran advanced, leading the 
aged father of Tone, who produced his affidavit, that 
his son had been brought before a bench of officers, 
calling itself a court martial, and sentenced to death- 
"I do not pretend, said Curran, that Mr. Tone is not 
guilty of the charges of which he is accused, I pre- 
sume the officers were honorable men. But it is stated 
in this affidavit, as a solemn fact, that Mr. Tone had no 
commission under his Majesty; and, therefore, no 
court martial could have cognizance of any crime im- 
puted to him, whilst the court of king's bench sat in 
the capacity of the great criminal court of the land. 
In times when war was raging, when man was opposed 
to man in the field, courts martial might be endured; 
but every law authority is with me, whilst I stand upon 
this sacred and immutable principle of the constitution, 
that martial law and civil law are incompatible, and 
that the former must cease with the existence of the 
latter. This is not, however, the time for arguing this 
momentous question. My client must appear in this 
court. He is cast for death this very day. He may 
be ordered for execution whilst I address you. I call 
on the court to support the law, and move for a habeas 
corpus, to be directed to the piovost marshal of the 
23* 



270 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

barracks of Dublin, and Major Sandys, to bring up the 
body of Tone." 

Chief Justice. "Have a writ instantly prepared." 

Curran. "My client may die, whilst the writ is 
preparing." 

Chief Justice. "Mr. Sheriff, proceed to the bar- 
racks, and acquaint the provost marshal that a writ is 
preparing to su.spend Mr. Tone's execution, and see 
that he be not executed." 

The court awaited, in a state of the utmost agitation 
and suspense, the return of the Sheriff. He speedily 
appeared, and said, "my lord, I have been to the bar- 
racks, in pursuance of your order. The provost mar- 
shal says he must obey Major Sandys. Major Sandys 
says he must obey Lord Cornwallis." Mr. Curran 
announced, at the same time, that Mr. Tone, the father, 
was just returned, after serving the habeas corpus, and 
that General Craig would not obey it. The chief 
justice exclaimed, "Mr. Sheriff, take the body of Tone 
into custody — take the provost marshal and Major San- 
dys into custody, and show the order of the court to 
General Craig." 

The general impression was now, that the prisoner 
would be led out to execution, in defiance of the 
court. This apprehension was legible in the counte- 
nance of Lord Kilwarden, a man who, in the worst of 
times, preserved a religious respect for the laws, and 
who, besides, I may add, felt every personal feeling of 
pity and respect for the prisoner, whom he had for- 
merly contributed to shield from the vengeance of 
government, on an occasion almost as perilous. His 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 271 

agitation, according to the expression of an eye-wit- 
ness, was magnificent. 

The Sheriff returned at length with the fatal news. 
He had been refused admittance in the barracks; but 
was informed, that Mr. Tone, who had wounded him- 
self dangerously the night before, was not in a condi- 
tion to be removed. A French emigrant surgeon, who 
had closed the wound, was called in, and declared 
there was no saying, for four days, whether it was 
mortal. His head was to be kept in one position, and 
a sentinel was set over him, to prevent his speaking. 
Removal would kill him at once. The chief justice 
instantly ordered a rule for suspending the execution. 

I must collect my strength to give the remaining de- 
tails of the close of my father's life. The secrets of 
a state prison, and of such a prison as were those of 
Dublin, at that period, are seldom penetrated; and the 
facts which have reached us, are few and meagre. As 
soon as he learned the refusal of his last request, his 
determination was takSn, with the same resolution and 
coolness which he exhibited during the whole transac- 
tion. In order to spare the feelings of his parents and 
friends, he refused to see any one, and requested only 
the use of writing materials. During the 10th and 
11th of November, he addressed the directory, the 
minister of marine. General Kilmaine, and Mr. Shee, 
in France, and several of his friends in Ireland, to re- 
commend his family to their care. I here insert a 
translation of his letter to the directory, the only one 
of which we obtained a copy. 



272 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

"FROiM THE provost's PRISON, DUBLIN, 

20th Brumaire^ 1th year of the Republic, \ 
( 1 0//i jYovember, 1 7 98.) 3 

Thi Adjutant General Theobald Wolfe Tone^ (called 
Smithy) to the Executive JDirectory of the French Re- 
public. 

Citizen Directors: 

"The English government having determined 
not to respect my rights as a French citizen and officer, 
and summoned me before a court martial, I have been 
sentenced to death. In those circumstances, I request 
you to accept my thanks for the confidence with 
which you have honored me, and which, in a moment 
like this, I venture to say I well deserved. I have 
served the republic faithfully, and my death, as well as 
that of my brother, a victim like myself, and con- 
demned in the same manner about a month ago, will 
sufficiently prove it. I hope the circumstances in 
which I stand will warrant mff, citizen directors, in 
supplicating you to consider the fate of a virtuous wife 
and of three infant children, who had no other sup- 
port, and, in losing me, will be reduced to the extreme 
of misery. I venture, on such an occasion, to recall 
to your remembrance, that I was expelled from my 
own country in consequence of my attempts to serve 
the republic; that, on the invitation of the French go- 
vernment, I came to France; that ever since I had the 
honor to enter the French service, I have faithfully, 
and with the approbation of all my chiefs, performed 
my duty; finally, that I have sacrificed for the repub- 
lic all that man holds dearest — my wife, my children, 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 273 

my liberty, my life. In these circumstances, I confi- 
dently call on your justice and humanity in favor of my 
family, assured that you will not abandon them. It is 
the greatest consolation which remains to me in dying. 
Health and respect, 

T. W. TONE, (called Smith,) 

Adjutant GeneraV^ 

He then, with a firm hand and heart, penned the two 
following letters to my mother: 

PROVOST PRISON — DUBLIN BARRACKS, 

Le 20 Brumaire, an 7, (lOthJVov,) 1798. 

Dearest Love: 

''The hour is at last come, when we must part. As 
no words can express what I feel for you and our chil- 
dren, I shall not attempt it; complaint, of any kind, 
would be beneath your courage and mine; be assured 
I will die as I have lived, and that you will have no 
cause to blush for me. 

"I have written on your behalf to the French go- 
vernment, to the minister of marine, to General Kil- 
maine, and to Mr. Shee; with the latter I wish you 
especially to advise. In Ireland, I have written to 
your brother Harry, and to those of my friends who 
are about to go into exile, and who, I am sure, will 
not abandon you. 

''Adieu, dearest love: I find it impossible to finish 
this letter. Give my love to Mary; and, above all 
things, remember that you are now the only parent of 
our dearest children, and that the best proof you can 



2T4 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

give of your affection for me, will be to preserve 
yourself for their education. God Almighty bless 
you all. 

Your's ever, 

T. W. TONE. 



P. S. I think you have a friend in Wilson, who will 
not desert you.'' 



•'5# 



second letter. 

Dearest Love: 

'4 write just one line, to acquaint you that I have 
received assurances from your brother Edward, of his 
determination to render every assistance and protec- 
tion in his power; for which I have written to thank 
him most sincerely. Your sister has likewise sent me 
assurances of the same nature, and expressed a desire 
to see me, which I have refused, having determined to 
speak to no one of my friends, not even my father, from 
motives of humanity to them and myself. It is a very 
great consolation to me, that your family are deter- 
mined to support you; as to the manner of that assist- 
ance, I leave it to their affection for you, and your own 
excellent good sense, to settle what manner will be 
most respectable lor all parties. 

"Adieu, dearest love. Keep your courage, as I have 

• Nobly did this pure and virtuous man, and he alone of all those 
whom my father had depended upon, fulfil tlie expectation of hij 
friend. He was to my mother a brother, a protector, and an adviser, 
during the whole period of our distress; and when, at the close of 
eighteen years, we were ruined a second time, by the fall of Napo- 
leon, he came over from his own country to offer her his hand and 
his fortune, and share our fate in America. 



GlSMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 275 

kept mine; my mind is as tranquil this moment as at 
any period of my life. Cherish my memory; and es- 
pecially, preserve your health and spirits for the sake 
of our dearest children. 

Your ever affectionate, 

T. WOLFE TONE." 
llth JSTovember, 1798. 

It is said, that, on the evening of that very day, he 
could see and hear the soldiers erecting the gallows for 
him before his windows. That very night, according 
to the report given by his jailors, having secreted a 
penknife, he inflicted a deep wound across his neck. 
It was soon discovered, by the sentry, and a surgeon 
called in at four o'clock in the morning, who stopped 
the blood and closed it. He reported, that, as the 
prisoner had missed the carotid artery, he might yet 
survive, but was in the extremest danger. It is said, 
that he murmured only in reply, "I am sorry I have 
been so bad an anatomist.'' Let me draw a veil over 
the remainder of this scene. 

Stretched on his bloody pallet in a dungeon, the first 
apostle of Irish union, and most illustrious martyr of 
Irish independence, counted each lingering hour during 
the last seven days and nights of his slow and silent 
agony. No one was allowed to approach him. Far 
from his adored family, and from all those friends 
whom he loved so dearly, the only forms which flitted 
before his eyes, were those of the grim gaoler and 
rough attendants of the prison; the only sounds which 
fell on his dying ear, the heavy tread of the sentry. 
He retained, however, the calmness of his soul, and 



276 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

the possession of his faculties, to the last. And the 
consciousness of dying for his country, and in the 
cause of justice and liberty, illumined, like a bright 
halo, his latest moments, and kept up his fortitude to 
the end. There is no situation, under which those 
feelings will not support the soul of a patriot. 

On the morning of the 19th November, he was 
seized with the spasms of approaching death. It is 
said that the surgeon who attended, whispered that, 
if he attempted to move or speak, he must expire 
instantly; that he overheard him, and, making a slight 
movement, replied, ''I can yet find words to thank 
you, sir: it is the most welcome news you could give 
me. What should I wish to live for?" Falling back, 
with these expressions on his lips, he expired without 
further effort. 



MATILDA TONE. 



This admirable woman is of a family which moves in 
the genteelest circles of her country. Her name was 
Witherington. At sixteen years of age she made a 
match of love with Theobald Wolfe Tone, then a 
youthful student. This marriage produced a separa- 
tion from her family, which only served to increase the 
tender affections of her husband. He bestowed mucl| 
time upon her education, and had the delicious pleasure 
of cultivating the most noble, refined, and delicate of 
minds. "Content," to use his own words, "with hon- 
orab'e poverty," they misjht be truly called a happy 
couple. But fortune, which delights in splendid vic- 
tims, blasted their early joys. Mrs Tone remained at 
her husband's death, in Paris, with three young pledges 
of their love. The estimation in which Tone was 
held, and her own merit, had attached to her interest 
many powerful friends. But with the arts of intrigue 
her noble mind could never be familiar, she retired 
from the notice of the world. The most elegant en- 
comium ever pronounced on woman, was that which 
Lucien Bonaparte bestowed upon her, in recommend- 
ing her case and that of her children to the attention 
of the French Councils. 

Her two sons were, in right of their father, received 
into the national school of the Prytannee, and her 
charming daughter, educated in the midst of a dissi4 
24 



278 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

pated city, with the purity of an angel, became the 
sweet companion, and soother of the sorrows of a wid- 
owed mother. But she, like a fair blossom untimely 
nipped, bloomed at once, and faded. She died in the 
dawn of loveliness, and felt no pang in death but for the 
sufferings of the mother she adored. Another child of 
promise soon followed, no less beloved, no less regretted; 
and fate, not satisfied with so much cruelty, threatened 
to bereave her of her remaining comfort. It was to avert 
that last stroke of angry destiny, that she lately made a 
voyage to America; and in the city of New York a 
society of her affectionate countrymen seized upon the 
unexpected occasion, and presented her with the fol- 
lowing tribute to the memory of her husband, and her 
own virtues. 

In pursuance of a resolution of the Hibernian Provident 
Society of the city of JVew York^ a co^nmittee waited 
on Mrs. Tone^ on Saturday last; and in the most 
respectful manner presented her a Medallion, with 
an appropriate device and inscription; and^ to her 
son (a youth of sixteen) a Sword, accompanied with 
the following 

address: 

Madam, — We are appointed by the Hibernian Provi- 
dent Society of New York, to embrace the opportunity 
of your presence in this city, to express to you their 
very profound respect for the character and memory 
of your late illustrious husband. General Theobald 
Wolfe Tone, and their affectionate attachment to his 
widow and son. To many of our society he was inti- 
mately known; by all of us he was ardently beloved; 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 279 

and while we look back with anguish on the frightful 
calamities of our time and country, we delight to dwell 
on his talents, his patriotism, his perseverance, and his 
dignity in misfortune. Accept, madam, a testimonial 
of their esteem, which can pretend to no value, but 
what it may derive from the sincerity with which it is 
offered. In some other country, perhaps, it may awaken 
the reflection, that wherever Irishmen dare to express 
the sentiments of their hearts, they celebrate the name 
and sufferings of TONE, with that melancholy enthu- 
siasm which is characteristic of their national feelings 
for the struggles and misfortunes of their Heroes.' 

We are likewise directed to present a Sword to his 
youthful son and successor, with a lively hope, that it 
may one day, in his hand, avenge the wrongs of his 
country. 

We are, madam. 

With the utmost respect, 

Your most obedient humble servants, 

David Bryson, 
Geo. W^hite, 

Wm. J. Macneven, \ Committee, 
Thos. Addis Emmet, 
George Cuming, 
October I, 1807. 

To which Mrs. Tone returned the following 

ANSWER. 

Gentlemen^ — The sweetest consolation my heart can 
feel, I receive in the proof you now give me that my 
husband still lives in your affections and esteem; though 
in the course of nine disastrous years, the numerous 



280 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

victims who have magnanimously suffered for the lib- 
erty of Ireland, might well confuse memory and make 
selection difficult. 

I am proud of belonging to a nation^ whose sons 
preserve under every vicissitude of fortune, a faithful 
attachment to their principles; and from whose firm 
and generous minds, neither persecution, exile, nor 
time, can obliterate the remembrance of those who 
have fallen, though ineffectually, in the cause of our 
country. 

For your gift to my son, take his mother's thanks 
and'his, while she tremblingly hopes that fate may spare 
him, to prove himself not unworthy of his father or 
his friends. I have the honor to remain. 

With grateful respect, gentlemen, 
Your most obedient, 

Matilda Tone. 

the m ed al l i o n. 
Cato contemplating the immortality of the soul;*he 
is seate4; one hand rests on the works of Plato, the 
other on his sword. The allusion will be readily per- 
ceived by those who remember the fate of General 
Tone. 

motto. 

Victrix Causa Diis placuit, sed Victa Catoni. 

INSCRIPTION. 

Presented by the Hibernian Provident Society of New York» 
to the worthy Relict of the late illustrious Patriot, 

GEN. THEOBALD WOLFE TONE. 

While we lament his sufferings. 
We will ever cherish his memory, 
And emulate his virtues. 



THE FATE OF THE TONE FAMILY. 



Mr. Tone had reached only his thirty-fourth year. 
His father was an eminent coach-maker in Dublin: he 
had sixteen children (thirteen sons and three daughters) 
of whom only five attained the age of maturity, and 
whose fates afford a singular instance of the wanderings 
and calamities of a single family. Theobald died as 
before related. Matthew was executed the same year, 
in Dublin barracks, for high treason: it is said that no 
niore than five persons were present at the execution. 
William was killed in India, a major in Holkar's ser- 
vice. Arthur accompanied his brother Theobald to 
America; and was subsequently, at the early age of 
eighteen, appointed to the command of a frigate in the 
service of the Dutch republic: he is supposed to have 
perished at sea, as no account was ever after received 
of him. Mary was married to a foreign merchant, and 
died at St. Domingo. Their aged mother survives and 
now resides in Dublin. 

After the death of Mr. Wolfe Tone, his widow and 
infant children were protected by the French republic; 
and, on the motion of Lucien Bonaparte, a pension 
granted for their support. 
24* 



COUNSELLOR SAMPSON, 



SAMPSON AND LORD MOIRA. 



Lord Moira lived at his mother's residence in Dublin. 
I was presented to him; and if I had received attentions 
from the ladies, I experienced still more flattering ones 
from him. He once called me into his cabinet, and after 
apologizing by anticipation, with all that suavity and 
nobleness of manner which he possesses, and after I had 
assured him that I knew him incapable of speaking any 
thing that ought to offend, he proposed to me to go 
over and live with him in England; that he saw a storm 
gathering round me; that he knew how I was threat- 
ened; that whatever loss it might be, he would en- 
deavour to counterbalance it, and that to whatever 
amount I chose, he would be my banker, and make 
my fortune his particular care. I did not imme- 
diately recover from the emotion this proceeding ex- 
cited in me; but when I did, I answered that had this 
offer been made a short time before I might perhaps 
have accepted of it; that I felt the value of it as much 
as if I did; that however agreeable such a retreat under 
the auspices of his lordship might be, I could not con- 
sent to it at present, as several hundreds of my op- 
pressed countrymen looked to me for their vindication. 
And having in such a crisis undertaken the defence of 
the wretched, I found it as impossible to abandon my 
duty to them as it would be for his lordship to quit the 
field of battle in the moment of action. 



CONDUCT 

OF THE 

REBEL LEADERS OF 1798. 



There is a story related and strongly attested to me, 
which it would be unjust to suppress. Two young la- 
dies of the Orange or government faction, whose father, 

Mr. H^ G , had rendered himself by violent 

cruelty peculiarly obnoxious; and who (shame of their 
sex) had performed with thf^ir own hands many acts of 
torture and indignity, fell into the power of the rebels. 
Their consciences suggested that they ought to share 
the fate which the Irish women had suffered on similar 
occasions. They addressed themselves to certain 
young officers of the rebel detachment, requesting 
their protection from the mob; but offering, as to them, 
to surrender their persons at discretion. The rebel 
officers replied with dignity and generosity, that they 
had taken arms against the enemies of their country, 
to punish tl^ir crimes, but not to imitate them. 



SAMPSON'S TESTIMONIAL 

IN FAVOR OF THE 

CHARACTER OFWM. BYRNE, 



One day, as we were all together in the yard of the 
bridewell, it was announced that the scaffold was 
erected for the execution of William Byrne, the pres- 
ervation of whose life had been a principal motive for 
the signature of many of the prisoners to the agreement 
abovementioned. We were all thunderstruck by such 
a piece of news: but I was the more affected when I 
learned, that lord Cornwallis had been desirous of re- 
mitting the execution, but that the faction had over- 
borne him in the council, by arguing that the agree- 
ment was ineffective, inasmuch as Mr. O'Conner, nor 
I, had not signed it. lo that moment I sent to Mr. Dobbs, 
to entreat that he would hurry to the castle, and offer 
my signature, on condition that this execution should 
be suspended; but unhappily it was too late. The ter- 
rorists had surrounded the scaffold, and that brave youth 
vras hurried, undaunted, to his death! This deed filled 
me with horror. I had never known any thing of 
William Byrne, until I had found means of conversing 
with him in our common prison. Through favor of 
Mr. Bush, once my friend, and then employed as his 
counsel, he obtained leave to consult with me on the 
subject of his trial; and certainly whatever can be con- 
ceived of noble courage, and pure and perfect heroism, 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 285 

he possessed. His life was offered him on condition 
that he would exculpate himself, at the expense of the 
reputation of the deceased lord Edward Fitzgerald; and 
the scorn with which he treated this offer was truly noble. 
Go, says he, to the herald of that odious proposition, and 
tell the tempter that sent you, that I have known no man 
superior to him you would calumniate, nor none more 
base, than him who makes this offer. It is not neces- 
sary to be a partisan of lord Edward Fitzgerald, nor 
acquainted with the sufferings and oppressions of the un- 
fortunate Irish people, to feel the dignity of such a reply. 
One must be dead to the feelings of generosity, sacred 
even amongst enemies, not to be touched with it. The 
more so, when it is known that this young man, who was 
but one and twenty years of age, was married to the 
woman that he loved, and had, within a few days, re- 
ceived a new pledge of fondness, and a new tie to life, 
in the birth of a first child. He had been loyally en- 
rolled in a corps of volunteers, until the persecutions 
and horrors committed upon those of his persuasion, 
for he was of a Catholic family, drove him from the 
ranks of the persecutors into the arms of rebellion. 
Had there been men less weak, and less wicked, in the 
government of Ireland, or a system of less inhumanity, 
he, with thousands now in exile or in the grave, would 
have been its boast and ornament, and the foremost in 
virtue and in courage to defend it. 



ROBERT EMMET, 



The projector of the late insurrection, Mr. Robert 
Emmet, who was a young gentleman of a highly re- 
spectable family, of very striking talents and interest- 
ing manners, was in the habit of visiting at Mr. Cur- 
ran's house: here he soon formed an attachment for 
Mr. Curran's youngest daughter. Of the progress of 
that attaclnnent. and of the period and occasion, of his 
divulging it to her, Mr. Emmet's letters, inserted here- 
after, contain all that is to be told. It is necessary, 
however, to add, as indeed will appear from those let- 
ters, that her father remained in total ignorance of the 
motive of Mr. Emmet's visits, until subsequent events 
made it known to all. To a man of his celebrity and 
attractive conversation, there seemed nothing singular 
in finding his society cultivated by any young person 
to whom he afforded (as he so generally did to all) the 
opportunities of enjoying it. As the period, however, 
of the intended insurrection approached, Mr. Curran 
began to suspect, from minute indications, which would 
probably have escaped a less skilful observer, that his 
young visiter was actuated by some strong passions, 
which it cost him a perpetual effort to conceal; and in 
consequence, without assigning to those appearances 
any precise motive, or giving the subject much atten- 
tion, he, in general terms, recommended to his family 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 287 

not lo allow vvliat was at present only a casual ac- 
quaintance to ripen into a greater degree of intimacy. 

Upon the failure of the insurrection, its leader 
escaped, and succeeded for some weeks in secreting 
himself. There is reason to believe, that had he; 
attended solely to his safety, he could have easily 
effected his departure from the kingdom; but in the 
same spirit of romantic enthusiasm which distinguished 
his short career, he could not submit to leave a country 
to which he could never more return, without making 
an effort to have one final interview with the object of 
his unfortunate attachment, in order to receive her 
personal forgiveness for what he now considered as 
the deepest injury. It was apparently with a view to 
obtaining this last gratification that he selected the 
place of concealment in which he was discovered: he 
was arrested in a house situate midway between Dub- 
lin and Mr. Curran's country seat. Upon his person 
were found some papers, which showed that subse- 
quent to the insurrection he had corresponded with one 
of that gentleman's family: a warrant accordingly fol- 
lowed, as a matter of course, to examine Mr. Curran's 
house, where some of Mr. Emmet's letters were found, 
which, together with the documents taken upon his 
person, placed beyond a doubt his connection with the 
late conspiracy, and were afterwards used as evidence 
upon his trial. 

It was from this legal proceeding that Mr. Curran 
received the first intimation of the melancholy attach- 
ment in which one of his children had been involved. 
This is not the place to dwell upon the agony which 
guch a discovery occasioned to the private feelings of 



288 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

the father. It was not the private calamity alone which 
he had to deplore; it came embittered by other cir* 
cumstances, which, for the moment, gave his sensibility 
an intenser shock. He was a prominent public cha- 
racter, and from the intrepid resistance which he had 
uniformly made in the senate and at the bar to the un- 
constitutional measures of the state, was inevitably ex- 
posed to the political hatred of many, who would have 
gloried in the ruin of his reputation as in a decisive 
triumph over those principles which he had all his life 
supported. He had seen and experienced too much of 
party calumny not to apprehend that it would show 
little respect for a misfortune which could afford a 
pretext for accusation; and however secure he might 
feel as to the final results of the most merciless inves- 
tigation, he still could not contemplate without anguish 
the possibility of having to suffer the "humiliation of 
an acquittal." But his mind was soon relieved from 
all such distressing anticipations. He waited upon the 
attorney-general,* and tendered his person and papers 
to abide any inquiry which the government might deem 
it expedient to direct. That officer entered into his 
situation with the most prompt and manly sympathy, 
and instead of assuming the character of an accuser of 
the father, more generously displayed his zeal in inter- 
ceding for the child. At his instance Mr. Curran ac- 
companied him to the privy council. Upon his first 
entrance there was some indication of the hostile spirit 
which he had originally apprehended. A noble lord, 
who at that time held the highest judicial situation in 

• The right honorable Standish 'Grady, the present Chief Barc^l 
of the Exchequer in Ireland, 



GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 289 

Ireland, undertook to examine him upon the transaction 
which had occasioned his attendance. To do this was 
undoubtedly his duty; but overstepping his duty, or at 
least his prudence, he thought proper to preface his 
intended questions by an austere, authoritative air, of 
which the palpable meaning was, that he considered 
intimidation as the most effectual mode of extracting 
the truth. He fixed his eye upon Mr. Curran, and 
was proceeding to cross-examine his countenance, 
when (as is well remembered by the spectators of the 
scene) the swell of indignation, and the glance of stern 
dignity and contempt which he encountered there, 
gave his own nerves the shock which he had meditated 
for another's, and compelled him to shrink back into 
his chair, silent and disconcerted at the failure of his 
rash experiment. With this single exception, Mr. 
Curran was treated with the utmost delicacy; for this 
he was principally indebted to the friendship of the 
attorney-general, who finding that every inquiry and 
document upon the subject explained all the circum- 
stances beyond the possibility of an unfavourable con- 
jecture, humanely and (where it was necessary) firmly 
interposed his authority, to save the feelings of the 
parent from any additional affliction. 

The following are the letters which it seems requi- 
site to introduce. There was a time when the publi- 
cation of them would have excited pain, but that time 
is past. The only persons to whom such a proceeding 
could have given a pang, the father and the child, are 
now beyond its reach; and their survivor, who from a 
sense of duty permits them to see the light, does so 
under a full persuasion, that all those who from per- 
25 



290 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

sonal knowledge, or from report, may sometimes recal 
their memories with sentiments of tenderness or es- 
teem, will find nothing in the contents of those docu- 
ments which can provoke the intrusion of a harsher 
feeling. 

FROM MR. ROBERT EMMET TO JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 

"I did not expect you to be my counsel. I nominated 
you, because not to have done so might have appeared 

remarkable. Had Mr. been in town, I did not 

even wish to have seen you; but as he was not, I wrote 
to you to come to me at once. I know that I have done 
you very severe injury, much greater than I can atone 
for with my life: that atonement I did offer to make 
before the privy council, by pleading guilty, if those 
documents were suppressed. I offered more — I offered, 
if I was permitted to consult some persons, and if they 
would consent to an accommodation for saving the 
lives of others, that I would only require for my part 
of it the suppression of those documents, and that I 
would abide the event of my own trial. This also 
was rejected; and nothing but individual information 
(with the exception of names) would be taken. My 
intention was, not to leave the suppression of those 
documents to possibility, but to render it unnecessary 
for any one to plead for me, by pleading guilty to the 
charge myself. 

*'The circumstances that I am now going to men- 
tion, I do not state in my justification. When I first 
addressed your daughter, 1 expected that in another 
week my own fate would be decided. I knew that in 
case of success, many others might look on me differ- 



GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 291 

enlly from what they did at that moment; but I speak 
with sincerity, when I say that I never was anxious for 
situation or distinction myself, and I did not wish to be 
united to one who was. I spoke to your daughter, 
neither expecting, nor in fact, under those circum- 
stances wishing that there should be a return of attach- 
ment: but wishing to judge of her dispositions, to 
know how far they might be not unfavourable or dis- 
engaged, and to know what foundation I might after- 
wards have to count on. I received.no encouragement 
whatever. She told me that she had no attachment for 
any person, nor did she seem likely to have any that 
could make her wish to quit you. I staid away till the 
time had elapsed when I found that the event to which 
I allude was to be postponed indefinitely. I returned 
by a kind of infatuation, thinking that to myself only 
was I giving pleasure or pain. I perceived no progress 
of attachment on her part, nor any thing in her con- 
duct to distinguish me from a common acquaintance. 
Afterwards I had reason to suppose that discoveries 
were made, and I should be obliged to quit the king- 
dom immediately; and I came to make a renunciation 
of any approach to friendship that might have been 
formed. On that very day she herself spoke to me to 
discontinue my visits: I told her that it was my inten-^ 
tion, and I mentioned the reason. I then, for the first 
time, found, when I was unfortunate, by the manner 
in which she was affected, that there was a return of 
affection, and that it was too late to retreat. My own 
apprehensions, also, I afterwards found, were without 
cause, and I remained. There has been much culpa- 
bility on my part in all this, but there has also been a 
jrreat deal of that misfortune which seems uniformly 



292 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AKD ANECDOTE. 

to have accompanied me. That I have written to yotrr 
daughter since an unfortunate event has taken place, 
was an additional breach of propriety, for which I 
have suffered well; but I will candidly confess, that I 
not only do not feel it to have been of the same extent, 
but that I consider it to have been unavoidable after 
what had passed; for though I will not attempt to jus- 
tify in the smallest degree my former conduct, yet 
when an attachment was once formed between us — and 
a sincerer one never did exist — I feel that, peculiarly 
circumstanced as I then was, to have left her uncertain 
of my situation, would neither have weaned her affec- 
tions, nor lessened her anxiety; and looking upon her 
as one, whom, if I had lived, I hoped to have had my 
partner for life, I did hold the removing her anxiety 
above every other consideration. I would rather have 
had the affections of your daughter in the back settle- 
ments of America, than the first situation this country 
could afford without them. I know not whether this 
will be any extenuation of my offence — I know not 
whether it will be any extenuation of it to know, 
that if I had that situation in my power at this moment, 
I would relinquish it to devote my life to her happi- 
ness — I know not whether success would have blotted 
out the recollection of what 1 have done — but I know 
that a man, with the coldness of death on him, need 
not be made to feel any other coldness, and that he 
may be spared any addition to the misery he feels not 
for himself, but for those to whom he has left nothing 
but sorrow.''* 

*The original, from which the above has been copied, is not 
signed or dated. It was written in the interval between Mr. Em- 
met's conviction and execution. 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 293 



FROM THE SAME, TO RICHARD CURRAN, ESa. 

nMy Dearest Richard^ 

"I find I have but a few hours to live, but if it was 
the last moment, and that the power of utterance was 
leaving me, I would thank you from the bottom of my 
heart for your generous expressions of affection and 
forgiveness to me. If there was any one in the world 
in whose breast my death might be supposed not to 
stifle every spark of resentment, it might be you — I 
have deeply injured you — I have injured the happiness 
of a sister that you love, and who was formed to give 
happiness to every one about her, instead of having her 
own mind a prey to affliction. Oh! Richard, I have no 
excuse to offer', but that I meant the reverse, I intended as 
much happiness for Sarah as the most ardent love could 
have given her. I never did tell you how much I idol- 
ised her; it was not with a wild or unfounded passion, 
but it was an attachment increasing every hour, from 
an admiration of the purity of her mind, and respect 
for her talents. I did dwell in secret upon the prospect 
of our union. I did hope that success, while it afforded 
the opportunity of our union, might be the means of 
confirming an attachment, which misfortune had called 
forth. I did not look to honors for myself — praise I 
would have asked from the lips of no man; but I would 
have wished to read in the glow of Sarah's counte- 
nance that her husband was respected. My love, Sarah! 
it was not thus that I thought to have requited your 
affection. I did hope to be a prop round which your 
affections might have clung, and which would never 
25* 



294 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

have been shaken; but a rude blast has snapped it, and 
they have fallen over a grave. 

"This is no time for affliction. I have had public 
motives to sustain my mind, and I have not suflFered it 
to sink; but there have been moments in my imprison- 
ment when my mind was so sunk by grief on her ac- 
count, that death would have been a refuge. 

"God bless you, my dearest Richard. I am obliged 
to leave off immediately. 

ROBERT EMMET.'' 

This letter was written at twelve o'clock on the day 
of Mr. Emmet's execution, and the firmness and regu- 
larity of the original hand-writing contain a striking 
and aflecting proof of the little influence which the 
approaching event exerted over his frame. The same 
enthusiasm which allured him to his destiny, enabled 
him to support its utmost rigour. He met his fate with 
unostentatious fortitude. 



MOORE'S OPINION OF ROBERT EMMET, 

Thomas Moore, in his life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, 
speaks in the following feeling, and beautiful manner 
of Emmet:— "Of this latter friend, (Emmet) notwith- 
standing his own dying entreaty that the world would 
extend to him "the charity of its silence," I cannot 
deny myself the gratification of adding a few words, 
conscious that, at least, the spirit of his wish will not 
be violated in them. Were I to number, indeed, the 



^EMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 295 

men, among all I have ever known, who appeared to 
to me to combine in the greatest degree, pure moral 
worth with intellectual power, I should, among the 
highest of the few, place Robert Emmet. Wholly 
free from the follies and frailties of youth, — though 
how capable he was of the most devoted passion 
events afterwards proved, — the pursuit of science, in 
which he eminently distinguished himself, seemed, at 
this time, the only object that at all divided liis thoughts 
with that enthusiasm for Irish freedom which in him 
was an hereditary as well as national feeling, — himself 
being the second martyr his father had given to the 
cause. 

''Simple in all his habits, and with a repose of look 
and manner indicating but little movement within, it 
was only when the spring was touched that set his feel- 
ings, attd, — through them, — his intellect in motion that 
he, at all, rose above the level of ordinary men. On 
no occasion was this more peculiarly striking than in 
those displays of oratory with which, both in the De- 
bating, and the Historical Society, he so often en- 
chained the attention and sympathy of his young au- 
dience. No tv^^o individuals, indeed, could be much 
more unlike to each other than was the same youth to 
himself, before rising to speak, and after; — the brow 
that had appeared inanimate and almost drooping at 
once elevating itself in all the consciousness of power, 
and the whole countenance and figure of the speaker 
assuming a change as of one suddenly inspired. 

*'0f his oratory, it must be recollected, I speak from 
youthful impressions; but I have heard little since that 
appeared to me of a loftier or (what is a far more rare 



296 GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTfi. 

quality in Irish eloquence) purer character; and the 
effects it produced, as well from its own exciting power, 
as from the susceptibility with which his audience 
caught up every allusion to passing events, was such 
as to attract at last seriously the attention of the fellows; 
and by their desire one of the scholars, a man of ad- 
vanced standing and reputation for oratory, came to 
attend our debates expressly for the purpose of an- 
swering Emmet, and endeavoring to neutralize the im- 
pressions of his fervid eloquence. 

"Such in heart and mind, was another of those 
devoted men, who with gifts that would have made them 
the ornaments and supports of a well regulated com- 
munity, were driven to live the lives of conspirators 
and die the death of traitors, by a system of govern- 
ment which it would be difficult even to think of with 
patience, did we not gather a hope from the present 
aspect of the whole civilized world, that such a system 
of bigotry and misrule can never exist again." 



LIFE AND DEATH 

OF THE 

REV. WILLIAM JACKSON, 



Mr. Jackson was a clergyman of the established 
church; he was a native of Ireland, but had for several 
years resided out of that country. A part of his life 
was spent in the family of the noted duchess of Kings- 
ton, and he is said to be the person who conducted 
that lady's controversy with the celebrated Foote. At 
the period of the French revolution, he passed over to 
Paris, where he formed political connections with the 
ruling powers there: from France he returned to Lon- 
don in 1794, for the purpose of procuring information 
as to the practicability of an invasion of England, and 
was thence to proceed to Ireland on a similar mission. 
Upon his arrival in London, he renewed an intimacy 
with a person named Cockayne, who had formerly 
been his friend and confidential attorney. The extent 
of his communications in the first instance to Cockayne 
did not exactly appear; the latter, however, was pre- 
vailed upon to write the directions of several of Jack- 
son's letters, containing treasonable matters, to his 
correspondents abroad; but in a little time, either sus- 
pecting or repenting that he had been furnishing evi- 
dence of treason against himself, he revealed to the 
British minister, Mr. Pitt, all that he knew or conjee- 



298 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

tured relative to Jackson's objects. By the desire of 
Mr. Pitt, Cockayne accompanied Jackson to Ireland, 
to watch and defeat his designs, and as soon as the 
evidence of his treason was mature, announced him- 
self as a witness for the crown. Mr. Jackson was 
accordingly arrested, and committed to stand his trial 
for high treason. 

It did not appear that he had been previously con- 
nected with any of the political fraternities then so 
prevalent in Ireland, but some of them took so deep 
an interest in his fate, that the night before his trial, 
four persons of inferior condition, members of those 
societies, formed a plan (which, however, proved 
abortive) to seize and carry off Cockayne, and perhaps 
to despatch him, in order to deprive the government 
of the benefit of his testimony. 

Mr. Jackson was committed to prison in April, 1794, 
but his trial was delayed, by successive adjournments, 
till the same month in the following year. In the in- 
terval, he wrote and published a refutation of Paine's 
Age of Reason, probably in the hope that it might be 
accepted as an atonement. He was convicted, and 
brought up for judgment on the 30th of April, 1795. 

It is at this stage of the proceedings that the case of 
Jackson becomes terribly peculiar. Never, perhaps, 
did a British court of justice exhibit a spectacle of such 
appalling interest as was witnessed by the king's bench 
of Ireland, upon the day that this unfortunate gentle- 
man was summoned to hear his fate pronounced. He 
had a day or two before made some allusions to the 
subject of suicide. In a conversation with his counsel 
in the prison, he had observed to them that his food 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 299 

Was always cut in pieces before it was brought to 
liim, the jailor not venturing to trust him with a knife 
or fork. This precaution he ridiculed, and observed, 
"that the man who feared not death, could never want 
the means of dying, and that as long as his head was 
within reach of the prison-wall, he could prevent his 
body's being suspended to scare the community." At 
the moment they regarded this as a mere casual ebul- 
lition, and did not give it much attention. 

On the morning of the 30th of April, as one of these 
gentlemen was proceeding to court, he met in the 
streets a person warmly attached to the government 
of the day; the circumstance is trivial, but it marks the 
party spirit that prevailed, and the manner in which 
it was sometimes expressed: "I have (said he) just seen 
your client, Jackson, pass by on his way to the king's 
bench to receive sentence of death. I always said he 
was a coward, and I find I was not mistaken; his fears 
have made him sick — as the coach drove by, I ob- 
served him with his head out of the window vomiting 
violently." The other hurried on to the court, where 
he found his client supporting himself against the dock; 
his frame was in a state of violent perturbation, but 
his mind was still collected. He beckoned to his 
counsel to approach him, and making an effort to 
squeeze him with his damp and nerveless hand, uttered 
in a whisper, and with a smile of mournful triumph, the 
dying words of Pierre: 

"We have deceived the senate."* > 

The prisoner's counsel having detected what they 

* Otway's Venice Preserved. 



300 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

conceived to be an informality in the proceedings, in- 
tended to make a motion in arrest of his judgment; but 
it would have been irregular to do so until the counsel 
for the crown, who had not yet appeared, should first 
pray the judgment of the court upon him. During the 
interval, the violence of the prisoner's indisposition 
momentarily increased, and the chief justice, Lord 
Clonmel, was speaking of remanding him, when the 
attorney general came in, and called upon the court to 
pronounce judgment upon him. Accordingly "the 
Reverend William Jackson was set forward," and pre- 
sented a spectacle equally shocking and affecting. His 
body was in a state of profuse perspiration; when his 
hat was removed, a dense steam was seen to ascend 
from his head and temples; minute and irregular move- 
ments of convulsions were passing to and fro upon his 
countenance; his eyes were nearly closed, and when 
at intervals they opened, discovered by the glare of 
death upon them, that the hour of dissolution was at 
hand. When called on to stand up before the court, 
he collected the remnant of his force to hold himself 
erect; but the attempt was tottering and imperfect: he 
stood rocking from side to side, with his arms in the 
attitude of firmness, crossed over his breast, and his 
countenance strained by a last proud effort into an ex- 
pression of elaborate composure. In this condition 
he faced all the anger of the offended law, and the 
more confounding gazes of the assembled crowd. The 
clerk of the crown now ordered him to hold up his 
right hand, the dying man disentangled it from the 
other, and held it up, but it instantly dropped again! 
Such was his state, when in the solemn simplicity of 



GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 301 

the language of the law, he was asked, '-What he had 
now to say why judgment of death, and execution 
thereon, should not be awarded against him according 
to law?" Upon this Mr. Curran rose, and addressed 
some arguments to the court in arrest of judgment. A 
legal discussion of considerable length ensued. The 
condition of Mr. Jackson was all this while becoming 
worse. Mr. (^rran proposed that he should be re- 
manded, as he was in a state of body that rendered 
any communication between him and his counsel im- 
practicable. Lord Clonmel thought it lenity to the 
prisoner to dispose of the question as speedily as pos- 
sible. The windows of the court were thrown open 
to relieve him, and the discussion was renewed: but 
the fatal group of death tokens were now collecting 
fast around him; he was evidently in the final agony. 
At length while Mr. Ponsonby, who followed Mr. 
Curran, was urging further reasons for arresting the 
judgment, their client sunk in the dock. 

The conclusion of the scene is given as follows in 
the reported trial. 

Lord Clonmel. "If the prisoner is in a state of in- 
sensibility, it is impossible that I can pronounce the 
judgment of the court upon him." 

Mr. Thomas Kinsley, who was in the jury box, said 
he would go down to him; he accordingly went into 
the dock, and in a short time informed the court that 
the prisoner was certainly dying. 

By order of the court, Mr. Kinsley was sworn. 

Lord Clojimel, "Are you in any profession.'^" 

Mr. Kinsley. "I am an apothecary." 
26 



302 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

Lord Clonmel Can you speak with certainty of 
the state of the prisoner?" 

Mr. Kinsley. "I can; I think him verging to eter- 
nity." 

Lord Clonmel "Do you think him capable of hear- 
ing his judgment?" 

Mr, Kinsley, "I do not think he can." 

Lord Clonmel. "Then he must h% taken away; 
take care that in sending him away no mischief be 
done. Let him be remanded until further orders; and 
I believe it as much for his advantage as for all yours 
to adjourn." 

The sheriff informed the court that the priso.ner was 
dead. 

Lord Clonmel. "Let an inquisition, and a respect- 
able one be held on the body. You should carefully 
inquire by what means he died." 

The court then adjourned, and the body of the de- 
ceased remained in the dock, unmoved from the posi- 
tion in which he had expired, until the following day, 
when an inquest was held. A large quantity of metal- 
lic poison was found in his stomach. The preceding 
day, a little before he was brought up to court, the 
gaoler having visited his room, found him with his 
wife, much agitated, and vomiting violently; he had 
just taken, he said, some tea, which disagreed with 
him; so that there remained no doubt that the unfor- 
tunate prisoner, to save himself and his family the 
shame of an ignominious execution had anticipated the 
punishment of the laws by taking poison. 

The following sentences, in his own hand writing, 
were found in his pocket. 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 303 

*'Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me, for 
I am desolate and afflicted." 

^'The troubles of my heart are enlarged: Oh bring 
thou me out of my distresses." 

*'Look upon my affliction and my pain, and forgive 
all my sins." 

"Oh! keep my soul and deliver me. Let me not be 
ashamed, for I put my trust in thee." 



ANECDOTE OF JACKSON 

DURING HIS 

IMPRISONMENT. 

Examples of honorable conduct, no matter by whom 
displayed, are heard with pleasure by every friend to 
human nature. Of such, a very rare instance was 
given by this gentleman during his imprisonment. For 
the whole of that period he was treated with every 
possible indulgence, a fact which is so creditable to 
the Irish government that it would be unjust to sup- 
press it. Among the other acts of lenity extended 
to him, was a permission to enjoy the society of his 
friends. A short time before his trial, one of these 
remained with him to a very late hour of the night; 
when he was about to depart, Mr. Jackson accompanied 
him as far as the place where the gaoler usually wait- 
ed upon such occasions, until all his prisoners' visiters 
should have retired. They found the gaoler in a pro- 
found sleep, and the keys of the prison lying beside 



304 ^EMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

him ''Poor fellow!" said Mr. Jackson, taking up the 
keys, "let us not disturb him; I have already been too 
troublesome to him in this way." He accordingly- 
proceeded with his friend to the outer door of the 
prison, which he opened. Here the facility of es- 
caping naturally struck him — he became deeply agi- 
tated; but after a moment''s pause, "/ could do it^'^^ said 
he, "but what would be the consequences to you, and 
to the poor fellow within, who has been so kind to me.^ 
No! let me rather meet my fate." He said no more, 
but locking the prison door again, returned to his 
apartment. It should be added that the gentleman, 
out of consideration for whom such an opportunity was 
sacrificed, gave a proof upon this occasion that he 
deserved it. He was fully aware of the legal conse- 
quences of aiding in the escape of a prisoner com- 
mitted under a charge of high treason, and felt that 
in the present instance it would have been utterly im- 
possible for him to disprove the circumstantial evidence 
that would have appeared against him; yet he never 
uttered a syllable to dissuade his unfortunate friend. 
He, however, considered the temptation to be so irre- 
sistible, that expecting to find the prisoner, upon farther 
reflection, availing himself of it, he remained all night 
outside the prison door, with the intention, if Mr. 
Jackson should escape, of instantly flying from Ire- 
land. 



CONVICTION 

or 
HENRY AND JOHN SHEARES. 



It was between seven and eight o'clock, on the morn- 
ing of the 13th of July, 1798, when the jury retired to 
consider their verdict. After the deliberation of a few 
minutes, they returned it, finding both the prisoners 
guilty. As soon as the verdict was pronounced, the 
unfortunate brothers clasped each other in their arms. 
They were brought up for judgment at three o'*clock 
on the same day, upon which occasion they both ad- 
dressed the court. 

Henry, who had a numerous family, was proceeding 
to request a short respite; but, when he came to men- 
tion his wife and children, he was so overwhelmed 
with tears, that he found it impossible to go on. His 
brother spoke with more firmness, and at more length. 
He began by strenuously disavowing the sanguinary 
intentions that had been imputed to him in consequence 
of the unpublished address to the insurgents which had 
been found in his hand writing, and produced in evi- 
dence against him. "The accusation (said he) of which 
I speak, while I linger here yet a few minutes, is Hhat 
of holding out to the people of Ireland a direction to 
give no quarter to the troops fighting for its defence.' 
I cannot only acquit my soul of such an intention, but 
I declare, in the presence of that God before whom I 
26* 



306 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE, 

must shortly appear, that the favorite doctrine of my 
heart was — that no human being should suffer death^ but 
tohere absolute necessity required it,^^ 

After having spoken for a considerable time to the 
sar/ie effect he proceeded. "Now, my lords, I have 
no favor to ask of the court. My country has decided 
that I am guilty; and the law says that I shall suffer: 
it sees that 1 am ready to suffer. But, my lords, I have 
a favor to request of the court that does not relate to 
myself. I have a brother, whom I have ever loved 
dearer than myself; — but it is not from any affection for 
him alone that I am induced to make the request; he is 
a man, and therefore, I hope, prepared to die, if he 
stood as I do — though I do not stand unconnected; 
but he stands more dearly connected. In short, my 
lords, to spare your feelings and my own I do not pray 
that I should not die; but that the husband, the father, 
the brother, and the son, all comprised in one per- 
son, holding these relations, dearer in life to him than 
any man I know; for such a man I do not pray a pardon, 
for that is not in the power of the court; but 1 pray a 
respite for such time as the court in its humanity and 
discretion, shall think proper. You have heard^ my 
lords, that his private affairs require arrangement. I 
have a further room for asking it. If immediately both 
of us be taken off, an aged and reverend mother, a 
dear sister, and the most affectionate wife that ever 
lived, and six children, will be left without protection 
or provision of any kind. When I address myself to 
your lordships, it is with the knowledge you will have 
of all the sons of our aged mother being gone: two per- 
ished in the service of the king, one very recently. I 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 30t 

only request, that, disposing of me with what swiftness 
either the public mind or justice requires, a respite 
may be given to my brother, that the family may ac- 
quire strength to bear it all. That is all I wish. I 
shall remember it to my last breath; and I will offer up 
my prayers for you to that Being who has endued us 
all with sensibility to feel. This is all 1 ask." 

4Fo this adecting. appeal, Lord Carleton replied, "In 
the awful duty imposed on me, no man can be more 
sensibly affected than I am, because I knew the very 
valuable and respectable father and mother from whom 
you are both descended. I knew and revered their 
virtues. One of them, happily for himself, is now no 
more: the other, for whom I have the highest personal 
respect, probably, by the events of this day, may be 
hastened into futurity. It does not rest with us, after 
the conviction which has taken place, to hold out mercy, 
that is for another place; and I am afraid, in the present 
situation of public affairs, it will be difficult to grant 
even that indulgence which you, John Sheares, so pa- 
thetically request for your brother. With respect to 
one object of your soliciting time for your brother, 
unfortunately it could be of no use; because, by the 
attainder, he will forfeit all his property, real and per- 
sonal: nothing to be settled will remain." 

His lordship then, after some preliminary observa- 
tions, pronounced sentence of death upon the prisoners; 
and, at the prayer of the attorney-general, directed 
that it should be executed upon them on the succeed- 
ing day. 

The following is a copy of Mr. John Sheares' fare- 
well letter to his family. It is addressed to his sister, 



308 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

to whom he had been most tenderly attached. It may 
not have much literary merit; "but nature is there, 
which is the greatest beauty." 

^'^Kilmamham Prison — Wednesday night, 
"The troublesome scene of life is nearly closed; and 
the hand that now traces these lines, in a short time 
will be no longer capable of communicating to a be- 
loved family the sentiments of his heart. 

"It is now eleven o'clock, and I have only time to 
address my beloved Julia in a short, eternal farewell. 
Thou sacred Power! — whatever be thy name and 
nature — who has created us the frail and imperfect 
creatures that we are, hear the ardent prayer of one 
now on the eve of a most awful change. If thy Divine 
Providence can be affected by mortal supplication, 
hear and grant, I most humbly beseech thee, the last 
wishes of a heart that has ever adored thy greatness 
and thy goodness. Let peace and happiness once 
more visit the bosom of my beloved family. Let a 
mild grief succeed the miseries they have endured; 
and, when an affectionate tear is generously shed over 
the dust of him who caused their misfortunes, let all 
their ensuing days glide on in union and domestic har- 
mony. Enlighten my beloved brother: to him and his 
invaluable wife grant the undisturbed enjoyment of 
their mutual love; and, as they advance, let their at- 
tachment increase. Let my Julia, my feeling, my too 
feeling Julia, experience that consolation which she 
has often imparted to others: let her soul repose at 
length in the consummation of all the wishes of her 
excellent heart: let her taste that happiness her virtue* 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 309 

have so well merited. For my other sisters provide 
those comforts their situation requires. To my mo- 
ther, — O Eternal Power! what gift shall I wish for 
this matchless parent? Restore her to that peace 
which I have unfortunately torn from her: let her for- 
get me in the ceaseless affections of my sisters, and in 
their prosperity: let her laste that happiness which is 
best suited to her affectionate heart; and when at length 
she is called home, let her find, in everlasting bliss, 
the due reward of a life of sufl'ering virtue. 

''Adieu, my dear Julia! My light is just out. The 
approach of darkness is like that of death, since both 
alike require me to say farewell! farewell, for ever! 
O! my dear family, farewell! — Farewell, for ever! 

"J. S." 

In the cemetery of the church of St. Michael's in 
Dublin, there are vaults for the reception of the dead, 
of which the atmosphere has the peculiar quality of 
protracting for many years the process of animal decay. 
It is not unusual to see there the coffins crumbling 
away from around what they were intended forever 
to conceal, and thus giving up once more to human 
view their contents, still pertinaciously resisting the 
influence of time. In this place the unfortunate bro- 
thers were deposited; and in this state of undesigned 
disinterment their remains may be seen to this day, the 
heads dissevered from the trunks, and "the hand that 
once traced those lines" not yet mouldered into dust, 



DYING DECLARATION OP WILLIAM ORR. 



MY FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN: 

III the Ihirty-first year of my life, I have been 
sentenced to die upon the gallows, and this sentence 
has been in pursuance of a verdict of twelve men, who 
should have been indifferently and impartially chosen; 
how far they have been so, I leave to that country 
from which they have been chosen, to determine; and 
how far they have discharged their duty, I leave to 
their God and to themselves. They have, in pro- 
nouncing their verdict, thought proper to recommend 
me as an object of human mercy; in return, I pray to 
God, if they have erred, to have mercy upon them. 
The judge who condemned me, humanely shed tears in 
uttering my sentence; but w^hether he did wisely, in 
so highly commending the wretched informer who 
swore away my life, I leave to his own cool reflection, 
solemnly assuring him and all the world, with my dying 
breath, that the informer was foresworn. The law un- 
der w^hich I suffer, is surely a severe one; may the 
makers and promoters of it, be justified in the integrity 
of their motives and the purity of their own lives. By 
that law^, I am stamped a felon, but my heart disdains 
the imputation. My comfortable lot and industrious 
course of life, best refute the charge of being an ad- 
venturer for plunder: but if to have loved my country, 
to have known its wrongs, to have felt the injuries of 



GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND AKECDOTE. Si 1 

the persecuted Catholics, and to have united with them 
and all other religious persuasions, in the most orderly 
and least sanguinary means of procuring redress; if 
those be felonies, I am a felon, but not otherwise. Had 
my counsel, for whose honorable exertions I am in- 
debted, prevailed in theif motion to have me tried for 
high treason, rather than under the insurrection laWj I 
should have been entitled to a full defence, and mv ac- 
tions and intentions have been better vindicated; but 
that was refused, and I must now submit to what has 
passed. 

To the generous protection of my country, I leave a 
beloved wife, who has been constant and" true to me, 
and whose grief for my fate has already nearly occa- 
sioned her death. I leave five living children who have 
been my delight; may they love their country as I have 
done, and die for it if needful. 

Lastly, a false and ungenerous publication having 
appeared in a newspaper, stating certain alleged con- 
fessions of guilt on my part, and thus striking at my 
reputation, which is dearer to me than life, I take this 
solemn method of contradicting that calumny. I was 
applied to by the high sheriff, and the Rev. William 
Bristow, sovereign of Belfast, to make a confession of 
guilt, who used entreaties to that effect; this 1 peremp- 
torily refused; did I think myself guilty, I should be 
free to confess it, but on the contrary, I glory in my 
innocence. 

I trust that all my virtuous countrymen will bear me 
in their kind remembrance, and continue true and faith- 
ful to each other, as I have been to all of them. With 
this last wish of my heart, not doubting of the succesB 



312 GEMS OP IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

of that cause for which I suffer, and hoping for God's 
merciful forgiveness of such offences as my frail nature 
may have at any time betrayed me into, I die in peace 
and charity with all mankind. 

William Oriu 
Carrickfergus Gaol^ October 5, 1798. 



THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION 



WILLIAM ORR, 

Jire alluded to and detailed by JVIr. Curran in his speech 
in defence oj Finnerty in the folloioing terms, (How 
horrid these means and agents of judicial murder!) 

Let me suppose that you had known the charge upon 
which Mr. Orr was apprehended, the charge of ab- 
juring that bigotry which had torn and disgraced his 
country, of pledging himself to restore the people of 
his country to their place in the constitution, and of 
binding himself never to be the betrayer of his fellow- 
laborers in that enterprise; that you had seen him upon 
that charge removed from his industry and confined in 
a gaol; that through the slow and lingering progress 
of twelve tedious months you had seen him confined 
in a dungeon, shut out from the common use of air and 
of his own limbs; that day after day you had marked 
the unhappy captive, cheered by no sound but the 
cries of his family, or the clanking of chains; that you 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 313 

had seen him at last brought to his trial; that you had 
s^n the vile and perjured informer deposing against 
his life; that you had seen the drunken, and worn out, 
and terrified jury give in a verdict of death; that you 
had seen the same jury when their returning sobriety 
had brought back their conscience, prostrate them- 
selves before the humanity of the bench, and pray that 
the mercy of the crown might save their characters 
from the reproach of an involuntary crime, their con- 
sciences from the torture of eternal self-condemnation, 
and their souls from the indelible stain of innocent 
blood. Let me suppose that you had seen the respite 
given, and that contrite and honest recommendation 
transmitted to that seat where mercy was presumed to 
dwell; that new and before unheard of crimes are dis- 
covered against the informer; that the royal mercy 
seems to relent, and that a new respite is sent to the 
prisoner; that time is taken as the learned counsel for 
the crown has expressed it, to see whether mercy 
could be extended or not! that, after that period of lin- 
gering deliberation passed, a third respite is transmitted; 
that the unhappy captive himself feels the cheering hope 
of being restored to a family that he had adored, to a 
character that he had never stained, and to a country 
that he had ever loved; that you had seen his wife and 
children upon their knees, giving those tears to grati- 
tude, which their locked and frozen hearts could not 
give to anguish and despair, and imploring the blessings 
of eternal Providence upon his head, who had gra- 
ciously spared the father, and restored him to his chil- 
dren; that you had seen the olive branch sent into his lit- 
tle ark, but no sign that the waters had subsided. ''Alas! 
27 



314 GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 

nor wife, nor children more shall he behold, nor friends, 
nor sacred home!" No seraph mercy unbars his dun- 
geon, and leads him forth to light and life; but the min- 
ister of death hurries him to the scene of suffering and 
of shame; where, unmoved by the hostile array of ar- 
tillery and armed men collected together, to secure, or 
to insult; or to disturb him, he dies with a solemn de- 
claration of his innocence, and utters his last breath 
in a prayer for the liberty of his country. 



REYNOLDS. 



NARROW ESCAPE OF REYNOLDS, THE INFORMER. 

Upon one occasion Reynolds saved himself from the 
vengeance of those whom he had betrayed, in a way 
that was creditable to his presence of mind. Be- 
fore he had yet publicly declared his infidelity to 
the cause of the United Irishmen, as one of their lead- 
ers, Samuel Neilson, was passing at the hour of mid- 
night through the streets of Dublin, he suddenly en- 
countered Reynolds, standing alone and unarmed. 
Neilson, who was an athletic man and armed, rushed 
upon him, and commanded him upon pain of instant 
death, to be silent and to accompany him. Reynolds 
obeyed, and suffered himself to be dragged along 
through several dark and narrow lanes, till they ar- 
rived at an obscure and retired passage in the liberties 
of Dublin. Here Neilson presented a pistol to his 



GEMS OF IRISH WIT AND ANECDOTE. 315 

prisoner's breast — "What," said the indignant con- 
spirator, "should I do to the villain who could insinuate 
himself into my confidence for the purpose of betray- 
ing me?" Reynolds, in a firm tone, replied, "You 
should shoot him through the heart." Neilson was so 
struck by this reply, that, though his suspicions were 
not removed, he changed his purpose, and putting up 
his pistol, allowed the other to retire. 

This fact is given as related by an eminent Irish bar- 
rister, to whom it was communicated by one of the 
parties. 



COCKAYNE, THE INFORMER. 



A FEW days before Cockayne had openly announced 
' himself as an informer, he was invited to accompany 
Jackson to dine with a friend of the latter. After din- 
ner, as soon as the wine had sufficiently circulated, 
Jackson, according to a previous suggestion from 
Cockayne, began to sound the political dispositions 
of the company, and particularly addressed himself to 
a gentleman of rank who sat beside him, and who, 
there has been subsequent reason to believe, was deep- 
ly involved in the politics of the time. During the 
conversation, Cockayne appeared to have fallen asleep; 
but in the midst of it, the master of the house was 
called out by his servant, who infermed him that he 
had observed something very singular in Mr. Jackson's 
friend — "he has his hand," said the servant, "over his 
face, and pretends to be asleep, but when 1 was in the 
room just now, I could perceive the glistening of his 
eye through his fingers." The gentleman returned to 
his guests; and, whispering to him, who was convers- 
ing with Jackson, to be cautious in his language, pro- 
bably prevented some avowal which might eventually 
have cost him his life. Upon such trivial accidfents 
do the fates of men depend in agitated times! 

THE END. 



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